Xbox's general manager of console development Leo del Castillo told Gizmodo that while Microsoft can't stop misuse of the console, or people blocking fans, it can at least anticipate and prevent any harm.
The Xbox One has been designed to detect its own temperature and adjust automatically to avoid overheating.
"The way we designed the box, we don't actually intend it to ever have to go to maximum speed under normal environmental conditions. But there is overhead," Castillo said.
"With the architecture of the Xbox One... we can dial back the power of the box considerably," he continued. "We had a little less flexibility with the 360. 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 in a mode that uses virtually no air flow."
How the depletion of power will affect the user remains unknown, but del Castillo says "we try to be as transparent to the user as possible. We'll allow the fan to go all the way up to maximum speed. They might notice the extra noise, and that will help to self-correct the condition." If that's not enough, "we have the mechanism, the interface, to deal with that," del Castillo added.
Microsoft made another change to its user policy earlier this week as chief Xbox One platform architect Marc Whitten revealed that Kinect is not required for the console to function.
The Xbox One launches in November, but Australian fans can go hands-on with the console at the EB Games Expo in October, while Microsoft is teasing unique exclusives to be revealed at Gamescom later this month.
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Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/424188/xbox-one-can-detect-and-prevent-overheating/
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