Someone Actually Built the Giant Metal Xbox Prototype, and It’s Glorious

Back in March 2000, Bill Gates walked onto the stage at GDC and showed the world something no one expected - a console shaped like a giant metallic X. Not a box, not a rectangle, not even remotely practical. Just a solid block of futuristic absurdity. The thing looked like it had fallen off a spaceship from Halo itself. And honestly? That's what made it perfect.

The original Xbox prototype cost Microsoft $18,000 to make (about $36,000 today), because they literally carved it out of a solid piece of aluminum. It was never meant to function as an actual console, or even as a prototype you could plug in. It existed for one reason only: to make people feel something. It screamed power, ambition, "the future." And whether you loved it or laughed at it, you remembered it - which is the whole point of good marketing.

Now, 25 years later, someone actually built a working version of that impossible machine. Tito from Macho Nacho Productions recreated the prototype in stunning detail, using fancy 3D modeling tools, a custom-cut aluminum shell, and even a Raspberry Pi to loop the glowing Xbox animation. The result? A fully functional, playable monument to early-2000s excess - and it looks glorious.

That original “X” design was never about logic. It was about impact. It told the world, “This isn’t just another console. This is something new.” And here we are, two and a half decades later, still talking about it. Mission accomplished, Microsoft.

If you don't have time for the process and you just want to see the console, skip to about 39:00 in the video above.