IKEA and XBOX YXSTABY Collection: How the Collaboration Came Together | Official XBOX Podcast

Lucas (0:00)

Games in this podcast range from E to M.

Malik Prince (0:03)

What's going on, everybody? Welcome back to The Official XBOX Podcast. It's the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. My name is Malik Prince, and I will be your host for today. And we've got a very special episode for you because we are in the Human Factors Lab here on Microsoft campus talking not with game devs but furniture devs as we detail the collaboration between Xbox and IKEA. We're going to be talking about gaming chairs. We're going to be talking about places for you to put your controller. We're going to be talking about the cutest D-pad you've ever seen. You're going to want to stay tuned for that one. So without further ado, let's get to it.

All right. I'm here with Philip DeLay from IKEA and Carl Ledbetter from Xbox. Gentlemen, how are you doing today?

Fantastic. See, you answered the same. We're starting to solve it right away. Okay. Love it. We're going to get into all of the design stuff because this is going to be really interesting conversation. But I want to start with Xbox and IKEA. I'm so excited for this collection, which I have not been able to pronounce it. Can you tell me how to say it?

Philip DeLay (1:01)

X-TA-BY.

Malik Prince (1:03)

X-TA-BY. Okay. The X-TA-BY collection.

Philip DeLay (1:05)

Yeah.

Carl Ledbetter (1:06)

X-TA-BY.

Philip DeLay (1:07)

Oh, yeah.

Carl Ledbetter (1:07)

Yeah.

Elliot (1:08)

Yeah. It's pretty good.

Malik Prince (1:10)

Can you tell me a little bit about how this partnership and this collaboration came to be?

Philip DeLay (1:13)

So, in IKEA, we're very curious about how people live. Like, life at home is what we do. And gaming is such a big part of people's lives. Almost everyone does it in almost every home throughout the world.

This time around, we really wanted to team up with experts in playing games at home, who really understand the players, who understand the hardware, the frustrations and the games. So, Xbox, we reached out and we had our first conversations and it turned out a very natural fit.

Malik Prince (1:43)

Well, yeah, just to jump on that, I actually, so I visit IKEA very often. In fact, and I'm not just saying this because you're on here, if you saw a picture of my living room, I have a coffee table, TV stand, my bookshelf, all from IKEA. I just love walking around and getting inspiration. But every once in a while, you'll see like a gaming setup and stuff like that. And so it's interesting to hear that like you wanted to like team up with experts.

Carl, expert, what was it like knowing that you're going to do this partnership and knowing the amount of different ways you could go about it? Like what was the feeling internally?

Carl Ledbetter (2:14)

Well, I can say honestly, my whole team was excited about this. Our design ethos is very similar to the way we make products, the way we understand who the user is. In our case, it's players, people who want to game. It doesn't stop there. It's the environment that you play in. The environment that we're sitting here talking right now is part of the experience and an important part of the experience. So as soon as this got brought up, everybody's like, oh yeah, this is natural. We just got to do something.

Malik Prince (2:42)

So we're going to get into all these pieces and learn more about the collection. But before we get into it, I want to know from each of you, pick your favorite child from this collection, starting with you, Philip.

Philip DeLay (2:53)

Oh, so I really like the TV stand. I'm so happy how it came out.

When I game, I really want to have the best seat in the house. That's not necessarily the TV on the wall. So I want to just roll it up. I also like the fact that the best part of it is actually not what you're seeing, it's what's behind the TV, it's that organization, it's the cable management. That's where we brought a little bit of IKEA organizational smarts, then working with Carl and the team to make it a great thing for gaming, and how to organize all the gear, and make sure that it fits the consoles and the controllers, your headphones can hang back there. It's a great piece and at a really good price.

Malik Prince (3:32)

There you go.

Philip DeLay (3:33)

Always selling.

Malik Prince (3:34)

I love that. You should see the cord management, or lack thereof, that's happening in my apartment. Carl, your favorite.