How Ikea Turned a Controller Thumbstick Into the Star of Its Xbox Gaming Range

Ikea has taken another swing at a gaming gear collection, but this time it brought in a ringer: Xbox . The new nine-piece range, revealed at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany, came about not through whiteboard marketing brainstorms, but a meeting between the Xbox and Ikea design teams at Milan Design Week in 2024.

Hearing the Xbox team—including Carl Ledbetter, head of Xbox devices design—was in Milan at the same time, Ikea product design developer Philip Dilé wanted to show off the company's latest creations, the Brännboll gaming collection , that pleasingly stepped away from sharp edges, RGB lighting, and a black color palette.

“That was a bit of an icebreaker," Dilé tells WIRED. "We were exploring gaming, so we wanted to team up with experts who really understand how people play. We know a lot about life at home , but we wanted to specifically understand how you design for gamers.”

Two years on, Ikea's new Yxstaby range is the fruit of that Milan meeting. The collection takes the ethos of 2024's Brännboll, where gaming gear sits well within home decor and doesn't look like it belongs in a bachelor's basement. But it also moves it forward by taking liberal inspiration from Xbox design cues.

Aimed at making it easier to bring gaming into living rooms and tuck everything away afterwards, the range includes a side table on wheels that can store controllers while charging them at the same time behind sliding doors; a toolbox that keeps cables and hardware under a lid that doubles as a laptop stand; a gaming lounge chair with a webbed pocket underneath to stow controllers out of sight; and even a rollable TV stand for a set of up to 55 inches, one that has a split level shelf for consoles.

Overtly Xbox-inspired pieces include a green gaming D-pad cushion and a surprisingly elegant D-pad controller platter, originally designed as a stool. Johan Ejdemo, Ikea's head of design , removed the base and played with the seat, eventually deciding it would make a fine plate or tray.

The original idea for the D-pad stool, which was converted into a platter.

What became of the D-pad stool—an elegant platter for your controllers or remotes.