Xbox is fast approaching one of the biggest sliding doors moments in its 25-year history. Under new leadership and pressure to regain ground lost to Sony’s PlayStation, Microsoft’s gaming division is betting big on a new direction while committing to future hardware, known only by its ‘Project Helix’ codename.
If Carl Ledbetter and Chris Kujawski, two of Xbox’s design leads, are feeling the pinch, they do a good job of hiding it at the recent Fanfest event in Sydney. Fresh from unveiling the pint-sized $79 Xbox Nano Controller, the pair seem unfazed by the chaotic musical chairs happening in their workplace.
Since Asha Sharma took over as Xbox CEO in February, the company has enacted a “reset” in a bid to arrest its downward momentum. Among studio closures and company cutbacks, thousands of people have lost their jobs, with many more expected to follow.
Ledbetter, a 30-year Microsoft veteran whose early work included the famous IntelliMouse, is currently the Partner Head of Design at Xbox. “Bringing back the soul of Xbox” is the direction from above, a mission that’s keeping him busy.
“We’re trying to do so much so fast,” Ledbetter said. “And so, our challenge is actually prioritising what are the things that are going to result in the biggest improvement for people play games.”
“We’ve got too much to do now. So how are we going to do it all? So maybe that’s our biggest challenge.”
A new console might still be a way off, so Kujawski — Senior Director, Xbox Hardware Design — and Ledbetter’s first step was to try to make gaming more approachable for more people.
Good hardware design
Enraptured by one of the first home versions of Pong at a young age, Ledbetter has a strong belief in what goes into good product design.
“A great design will do two things,” he said. “When somebody sees it, it will start to evoke an impression.”
“Every generation of console, we want it to communicate that impression of what it’s about. It has to be beautiful, and it has to work beautifully. So, good design, it’s visual and exciting, and it stands for something, but then it immediately gets into the role of function.”
Over the years, Xbox consoles have taken various forms and shapes in an attempt to match this ethos of form and function. But the silhouette of the controller hasn’t changed much since the Xbox 360 era, something Ledbetter and Kujawski see as a challenge.
“It has become more and more difficult for us to find areas for improvement,” Kujawski said. “And because there’s so much muscle memory ingrained in gamers’ hands that we actually feel a great responsibility not to regress in any way there.”
“For us as designers, that’s the fun challenge… we feel like we’ve refined the standard controller; there’s just microns that we’re changing each time now.”
It’s not arrogance on Kujawski’s part to claim that Xbox has mastered controller design. Although Xbox consoles haven’t necessarily topped best-seller lists, there’s a strong preference for its controllers across other platforms.
In 2024, Valve released a report outlining how often PC gamers on Steam use controllers, and which controllers are most popular. Across all Steam sessions involving a controller, Xbox controllers accounted for 59 per cent of sessions. PlayStation, its nearest rival, sat far behind on 26 per cent.
Where did the idea for the Nano come from?
Now, Xbox’s design team see expanding beyond conventional controllers as the next frontier. Catering to high-level players with the high-end customisable Elite Controller was an early attempt. Along the way, the controller’s designers made a realisation that would lead to the modular Xbox Adaptive Controller, an accessibility device for players with limited mobility.
“When we designed the first Elite Controller, we realised that the fact that it had buttons on the back opened up opportunities for, say you only have one hand or the use of one hand, to get more out of your controller,” Kujawski said. “That was a light bulb on moment for me… there’s a whole group of people that are underserved by the products that we’re making now.”
Several years later, Sony followed suit with the PlayStation Access Controller, which Kujawski said was “great for the industry”.
“It speaks to raising awareness around designing accessible products and bringing more people into gaming,” he said. “[The PlayStation Access Controller is] a totally different take on what an accessible controller can be (compared to) our Adaptive Controller, which I think is awesome because it’s serving a different need.”
Meeting new and younger players with the smaller Nano Controller is the company’s latest foray. According to its designers, the petite gamepad serves multiple purposes. One is to better cater to younger players and small-handed gamers. Another objective is to keep up with changing habits.
“One of the things that has changed in the past 25 years is gaming isn’t just in the living room in the same place every day,” Ledbetter said.
Kujawski described the standard Xbox controller as “backpackable”, whereas the Nano is considered “pocketable”. Theoretically, someone could use the Nano with a phone or a laptop without taking up limited bag space.
He added that the Nano is a “less intimidating” way to cater to new gamers and younger players with smaller hands
“Maybe it’s somebody’s first controller, maybe it’s somebody who is intimidated by what gaming might be, and this is an easier entry point into the gaming system,” Kujawski said.
How is a controller made?
Designing, engineering, and iterating a game controller is no simple task. Product designers through and through, Ledbetter and Kujawski sketch initial concepts by hand, but nothing takes place in a vacuum.
Using the sketched concepts, it’s a matter of repeated iteration and testing. Continuing his hands-on approach, Kujawski hand-sculpts early prototypes in his garage using modelling foam and clay.
“We then jump into 3D modelling, and we have our design studio in the same building as our model shop (where) we have dozens of 3D printers,” he said. “Constantly, every night during the design process, we will be iterating, print overnight… We’ll just do this over and over again until we get it right.”
“Our studio is lined with drawers that are filled with prototypes of various half-finished ideas.”
Designing the Nano involved “dozens and dozens” of models across a range of different form factors. Through this process, early mistakes were weeded out, and the final design took shape.
“When we were designing the Nano, we put the standard thumbsticks in the [controller],” Ledbetter said. “You build one prototype of that, and you can already see it’s like ‘these things are too big and weird. They stick up too high, they’re too large. Can we get smaller thumbsticks that feel right?’”
Both designers then obsessed over minute details, like the surface texture, bumpers and triggers. Most importantly, the final design has to survive Microsoft’s “reliability labs”, where purpose-built robots press each button millions of times to assess long-term durability.
Finally, after passing all tests, the final design enters mass production, ready to start shipping worldwide.
Future of Xbox
Planning for a future generation of gaming hardware seems an impossible task, given the impacts of the ongoing memory shortage — contributed to, in part, by Microsoft’s significant AI investments. The scarcity and increased costs of hardware components have caused consumer technology prices to skyrocket, with no signs of recovering anytime soon.
Much of this is completely beyond the control of those tasked with designing new hardware. Tight-lipped on anything related to Project Helix, Ledbetter explained that the Nano controller is one way Xbox is trying to introduce lower-priced options. As for future hardware, affordability is a frequent topic of discussion.
“We have a lot of meetings where we really get into the super details of what can we do to keep the quality high, the product value and performance high, but keep the price accessible,” he said.
“It is a tough time we’re in right now. We can’t predict the future; we don’t know what it’s going to be in three, six, nine months from now. But that’s one thing that we’ve done historically well, and we don’t plan to change, is to do everything we can to keep the prices at a place where more people can play.”
“One of the core principles of Xbox, one of the things that I actually think is one of the great aspects of it, is our focus on value,” Kujawski said. “I feel like we’ve always tried to deliver a ton of value for what you’re paying.”
According to a recent Fortune report, projections estimate that the Project Helix console could cost between US$1,200 and US$1,800. Even the low-end estimate roughly converts to $1,700 in Australian dollars before taxes, surpassing Sony’s $1,399 PlayStation 5 Pro console.
Anyone tasked with creating the next generation of gaming hardware faces a steep challenge. Lucky, then, that product designers like Ledbetter and Kujawski love a challenge. Xbox’s future may now depend on them.
The post “Too much to do now”: Could these designers define Xbox’s future? appeared first on GadgetGuy.
