Microsoft Expands Repair Options for Xbox Series X|S Consoles

Microsoft is expanding its Xbox repairability program to give owners of Xbox Series X|S consoles more options to repair them. After Microsoft allowed iFixit to sell official Xbox repair parts last month, the company is teaming up with uBreakiFix by Asurion in the US to offer a new alternative to in-person repairs at Microsoft Store locations.

“On January 20, uBreakiFix by Asurion will become the first Xbox Authorized Service Provider to repair Xbox consoles at its nearly 700 participating store locations across the U.S,” the Xbox team announced today. “In-person Xbox console repairs were previously only possible through the Microsoft Store, which means players will now have even more ways to repair their consoles, separate from Microsoft’s own support channels.”

For Xbox gamers willing to repair their out-of-warranty consoles on their own, Microsoft will also start selling replacement components for Xbox Series X|S consoles on its Microsoft Store. While iFixit will continue to sell official repair parts for Xbox and Surface devices, more choice is always welcome.

To reduce the carbon impact of its Xbox consoles, Microsoft said that it also replaced all single-use plastics in the packaging with paper and fiber-based materials. The company also highlighted that media apps running on its all-digital Xbox Series S now consume approximately 10% less power. An official support page about Xbox energy consumption mentions that the Series S consumes 28W while streaming HD content and 31W for UHD content, but I’m not sure these figures have already been updated to take into account these power efficiency improvements.

What Microsoft didn’t mention today is that its new Xbox Series X consoles released in October come with a more power-efficient 6nm chip and a redesigned motherboard and cooling system. This was first reported by tech YouTuber Austin Evans in October, who also noticed that the new Series X consoles consume around 10 watts less than the original Xbox Series X model when idle and around 16 watts less during active gameplay.