Well when you include the parallelogram shape and the empty  space between the top and the botom, PS4 indeed almost half of it, and not to mention Power supply in side of it

That's probably because they want someone else to handle hardware, while still getting all the benefits.

Also hardware has been important for them since the 90's when Uncle Billy realised nobody knew what would be the future of entertainment. Since then they zuned and surfaced and xboxed.

Wow, that picture makes it look even more like a DVR.

Straight out of 80's (actually i remember the NES to be a lot thinner)

To quote "Extreme Tech"

"we would argue that the Xbox One’s increased size isn’t to reduce the chance of thermal failure — rather, it’s a sign that Microsoft’s engineering team simply wasn’t good enough to design a console that was small, light, and had good thermals."

Easy answer really.

I feel like i'm the only one who likes the design.

That's got to be turned into a meme!!!! Please someone make it happen!

Also in the following quote the reason for the patchwork squares is to match the dashboard, which one assumes you're supposed to notice, which runs counter to the whole, you should be ignoring it vibe.

I don't think Xbox has ever won the "swimsuit" competition in any generation and this one is no different. Fortunately, tight buns, unlike in the modelling biz, isn't what's needed to be top model. Unfortunately, Xbox doesn't seem to have managed to have the total package that's required to be top model. And this time round it didn't win miss congeniality either.

Well, XB1 does run quieter than PS4 in my cabinet. I have to leave the cabinet open when playing PS4, but not for the XB1.

It does make it a good Blu-ray player, as I don't have that many games to play on it yet.

ps4 is 271 cubic inches

xb1 is 438 cubic inches

ps4 is 60% of the size of xb1

Fat, ugly and boring was my first reaction, so we're certainly not on the same page.

Aye, but twice as big? Hardly.

It's actually a good thing that it is big, more future-proof. One of the biggest reasons for console deaths last year (with both PS3 and 360) was lack of cooling with almost all the models, so this should certainly mitigate that. If it means making a few inches extra room in the entertainment system, so be it.