A crazed modder known as Redherring32 has built the gaming monstrosity absolutely nobody asked for, a portable Microsoft XBOX which vaguely fits inside the palm of your hands.
With sheer determination (and probably a lot of special sugar), he set out to create the impossible: a fully customized handheld XBOX, complete with its original internals and a 9-inch screen.
It’s bulky, it’s grotesque, it’s ugly as hell, but damn, it’s a masterpiece.
With rumors swirling that Microsoft might drop a portable device alongside their next-gen XBOX, which is likely to be the last console generation before the industry pivots towards an all-digital subscription based streaming service, one of the hottest tech trends right now is handheld PCs, thanks to Valve and their Steam Deck.
The Steam Deck is more than just a portable way to lug your Steam library around the world, it’s also a top-tier emulation machine, resurrecting forgotten relics of the gaming past.
But what we’re talking about here isn’t some fancy emulator. Nope, this beast is the real deal: a heavily modified, native Original XBOX console from 2001, hacked down to (mostly) fit in your hands. And that’s exactly what makes it so damn awesome.
Forget about emulator quirks and compatibility issues, this handheld is pure, unfiltered XBOX goodness. Every game, homebrew or otherwise, runs exactly as it would on an original console.
The madman behind this creation, Redherring32, took the XBOX mainboard and went to town trimming it down to a more compact size, a process that took months of trial and error. In the end, 12 custom PCBs were created, all held together by a rat’s nest of ribbon cables, tape, and pure ingenuity.
The device sports a massive 9-inch, 480p screen and is powered by 100W USB Type-C charging. Redherring32 even boasts that he’s working on adding WiFi support for XBOX Live gaming on the go, given how Halo 2 multiplayer was recently resurrected for native console or emulation, WiFi would kick ass.
Considering the XBOX’s early 2000s tech, designed for bulky CRTs and plasma screens using AV cables, the fact that this handheld beast, powered by a literal Intel Pentium III processor and a custom NVIDIA GeForce 3 hybrid graphics card with an extra vertex shader, can still pump out progressive scan video is nothing short of wild.
Some games can even hit 720p or 1080i, which is insane for hardware from an era where HD wasn’t even a thing yet.
Sure, you could just grab a Steam Deck, which is cheaper, smaller and easier to use, often upscaled to boot. But where’s the fun in that? This Frankenstein console, molded between two “Slim” controllers (not the chunky “Duke” controller for real authenticity), may look grotesque and unwieldy, but it’s undeniably cool.
Why would anyone go through all this trouble? Simple: Why the fuck not?
This isn’t the first time a console’s been hacked into a makeshift handheld, either. Sony’s PlayStation 2, the XBOX’s old rival, has also been Frankensteined into a portable console.
And if you’ve got more money than sense, you can even get your hands on one of those DIY monstrosities.
But here’s the kicker: Redherring32 didn’t just keep this engineering feat to himself. He was generous enough to “open source” the whole damn thing. He’s laid out detailed guides for any aspiring mad scientists and brave autists to copy his homework.
From trimming the Xbox’s bulky PCB down to soldering and relocating components, he’s got you covered if you’re crazy enough to follow in his footsteps, which you probably wont but however his design is still aspiring to behold.
