The Xbox Already Looks Like a Toaster, Now It Is One

A wise man once said, “All toasters toast toast.” Well, sure enough, they… don’t, but some non-toaster devices could be well adapted to aid me with making a quick BLT. Now Microsoft, in all its wisdom, has decided to take its Xbox Series S design and finally add a slot on top—not for discs—but for bread. Why turn a Series S into a toaster? For the memes, of course.

Twitter game deal spotter Wario64 first noticed the toaster was real and that you could buy it from Walmart. Judging by reviews, the toaster has been around for a bare few months, though Microsoft hasn’t put any real emphasis behind it like it had the previous Xbox Mini Fridge. As The Verge first mentioned, the toaster first popped up (pun intended) earlier last year on French sites, but it took until holiday time in 2023 for it to come up for sale elsewhere.

The $40 Series S toaster’s big claim to fame is how it will burn an Xbox logo onto your bread slices. Otherwise, it’s your average 2-slot toaster with a browning shade selector and an LED digital countdown. It has significantly more physical buttons and dials than Microsoft’s cheaper console, and it’s enough to make me nostalgic for the physical switches on far older game consoles. At the very least, it’s not much more expensive than other toasters. Judging by the specs shown on the purchase page, the toaster is actually larger in volume than the real Xbox Series S console. It also stands on little rubber feet rather than sitting brick-like next to your TV.

There’s been plenty of jokes going on for years that the Xbox Series X had a very fridge-like silhouette. So much so that Xbox promoted a limited Series X mini fridge to “Power Your Memes.” Those fridges were extremely limited to start, but a few are still around and up for sale if you’re desperate to cool your beverages in a big black box that happens to have an Xbox logo on it.

On average, most Xbox Series S consoles should typically only reach about 125 degrees Fahrenheit. The smaller Xbox is not as powerful as a Series X or PlayStation 5, so it’s not going to get quite as hot as its bigger brother or competitor. A toaster should reach temperatures of about 320 degrees Fahrenheit, so before you make any jokes about the Xbox already being hot enough to be a toaster, the science isn’t on your side (though I won’t stop you. Hell, look at the headline. Do you think I have many compunctions about ragging on silly tech?).