Tech creator makes console gaming Megazord, squeezing a PS5, Xbox Series S, and Nintendo Switch 2 inside a homemade cooling array
Before joining the PC Gamer team, I spent many years as a console gamer—shocking, I know. Though I have a Steam backlog many would envy, I'm still hopping between my rig and perhaps far too many consoles. What's a gamer to do? Crack each of those bad boys open and form something like a console Megazord? Well, one Chinese modder has basically done just that.
Hong Kong-based tech creator 小宁子 XNZ has built a 3-in-1 console that swaps between a PS5, Xbox Series S, and a Switch 2 at the push of a button (via TechSpot). It's a project vaguely reminiscent of Origin PC's The Big O, a liquid-cooled desktop with either a PS4 Pro or an Xbox One S console tucked inside, back in 2020. The creator calls her 3-in-1 effort the 'Ningtendo PXBOX 5,' and it turns out this hunk of hardware was no easy thing to create.
Rather than simply strapping all of the hardware together (which the YouTuber demonstrates would be both unwieldy and weigh a hefty 10 kg), she stripped everything down to its electrical components and completely rethought the hardware's housing. Don't worry, no motherboards were folded 'like a book' or otherwise harmed during this project.
Noticing that individual PSUs and cooling components take up an awful lot of space, the tech creator's first decision for her project was figuring out which components the consoles could share. Taking inspiration from the 2013 Mac Pro's 'trash can' design, 小宁子 XNZ set to work on designing a triangular cooling array with an exhaust at the top to regulate the temperature of all three consoles at once.
Actually making such a bespoke bit of kit proved an adventure in itself, though. After 3D printing her preliminary design for the cooler, 小宁子 XNZ found that relying on an outsourced manufacturing service to CNC machine her work in aluminium would be both a lengthy and costly process—so she decided to do it herself.
Seeking the time and space to iterate on her design, the tech creator chose to use an aluminium casting method not unlike lost-wax casting. Realising that, like wax, the PLA filament often used in 3D printing also has a low-ish melting point, she encased her cooler design inside a cast of gypsum. This version of the cooler is 3D printed with an extra channel for the creator to pour in molten aluminium. After a kind of chunky first attempt, the creator tweaked the design of the cooler's fins and tried again.
With a more successful later attempt coming out like 'a lotus flower emerging from water,' 小宁子 XNZ polished the aluminium chassis before attaching copper blocks to it for even better thermal regulation. For a spot of testing in Elden Ring, she strapped just the PS5's electrical hardware and a 12 cm cooling fan to the copper-aluminium-combo cooler. The console is shown to not only switch on in this bare bones state, but also doesn't exceed 60 °C over 30 minutes of gameplay.
The final 3-in-1 console runs off a single 250 W PC power supply, and even incorporates a push-button mechanism that allows the Switch 2 console to be ejected like a slice of funky, chunky poptart from a toaster. The actual console switching mechanism is accessed via a triangular button on top of the 'Ningtendo PXBOX 5,' with an Arduino-based control board handling the HDMI output and ensuring only one console is powered on at a time.
While multiple consoles can be in standby mode, it sounds like game switching on the Xbox isn't really supported by this setup. However, 小宁子 XNZ's video also demonstrates that hopping between consoles takes less than five seconds.
Black walnut panelling and an LED light strip that glows either blue, red, or green depending on the active console are among the finishing touches. Looking not unlike a hefty white chocolate Toblerone, the resulting 3-in-1 console is undeniably still bulky—though 小宁子 XNZ says she 'thinks it looks better than the PS5.'
Though I do have a bit of a soft spot for Sony's funky white box, the Ningtendo PXBOX 5 remains an incredibly impressive project. While I'm not sure the whole thing saves that much space in the end, I am also writing this from a rig that has a lot of the same games and arguably takes up even more room…