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curl-6 on 09 May 2026
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EricHiggin said:
curl-6 said:

A slim doesn't necessarily have to compromise decent reliability; the PS4 slim, PS3 slim, Xbox One S, etc were all fairly dependable.

PS4 slim also happened despite the system selling very well, so I think an Xbone slim would still be a thing had it sold better.

Slims are more the norm for SNY vs MS. 360 also didn't shrink near as much as the PS3 did. SNY is a hardware co and MS is a software co, and SNY hardware has always been more advanced overall considering size. PS5 would be the exception, only because of the case design with separate outer plates which limit its compactness. Remove those outer plates from the console and the inner shell is very compact based on what's inside. Also no XBSS/X slims yet this gen.

XB1S, as it shipped, was very well designed and reliable, but that's in this timeline where that was seen as necessary to save the brand. MS was in big trouble after the disaster Mattrick set in motion. In this alternate timeline you propose, MS doesn't have that mindset, since things are going very well for XB1, so there would be little reason to create the XB1S we got. Again, that doesn't MS wouldn't do it, but it wouldn't seem as logical having moved beyond the 360 RROD with the VCR style case, and with XB1 sales being on par with 360 this time in this other timeline. Do you risk a slim, and if you do, do you risk a compact slim, with internal PSU? Not likely in this different timeline.

You don't need to be doing struggling to motivate a slim revision though; PS4 got one. Xbox Series likely hasn't simply due to its poor sales not making the investment worthwhile.

Xbox One S worked just fine, slimming down a console is really not a big risk provided you engineer it properly, if it was we wouldn't have seen pretty much every successful console get one.