Xbox One Can Regulate Power to Prevent Overheating

Just like PC gaming, overheating has the potential to cause problems with any console. And despite the array of ventilation holes cycling air through a system, hardware designers have to think of all the variables--like people stacking consoles for some inexplicable reason.

During an interview with Gizmodo, Microsoft's general manager of console development, Leo del Castillo, revealed how the Xbox One will avoid thermal meltdown. While the system's fan will ramp up to maximum if the Xbox One is running too hot--and the noise will hopefully remind you about the towel you left draped over the console--the next Xbox can also regulate its own power.

"One thing that we have more flexibility with the architecture of the Xbox One, is that we can dial back the power of the box considerably," said del Castillo. "We had a little less flexibility with the 360. And so basically, if we couldn’t dissipate the heat, there wasn’t a whole lot of leverage we could pull to keep the heat from being generated, so we had a limited amount of time before it just shut down. Xbox One can actually dial it back to a lower power state, so low in fact that it can [be] in a mode that uses virtually no air flow."

What's not immediately clear is if this self-regulation will happen during gameplay or just non-gaming apps, as a decrease in power would likely mean a decrease in performance during graphically intense titles. Regardless, del Castillo says the Xbox One will notify the user of impending problems with some type of notification.

Source: IGN