Anyone who has used game console emulation software is familiar with the idea of having many consoles available in one device. But this is only possible for classic consoles, like the NES, Sega Genesis, and the original Sony PlayStation. However, YouTuber 小宁子 XNZ wanted to have this same experience for the latest hardware available — the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and Switch 2.
Waiting around for Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony to team up is pointless, so XNZ decided to build her own three-in-one console. After poking around inside each of these machines, she found that the core electronics are reasonably compact in each. It is the power supplies and cooling systems that take up most of the space. So to keep things compact and looking nice, she decided to design shared power and cooling systems for her console, called the Ningtendo PXBOX 5.
Without power and cooling, the rest of the hardware is fairly compact (📷: 小宁子 XNZ)
When considering possible designs, XNZ realized that the “trashcan” Apple Mac Pro form factor would be perfect. The large, triangular cooling block in the center is ideally suited for cooling all three consoles’ motherboards. But making a custom cooling block of the proper size proved to be a big challenge.
To make the concept work, XNZ stripped each console down to its essentials, keeping only the motherboards and setting aside the original coolers and power supplies. Each PCB would mount to one face of the triangular core, with a single fan at the base pulling air upward to cool all three systems at once. The approach mirrors the vertical airflow strategy already used in the Xbox Series X, but scaled up to handle three different platforms simultaneously.
Early on, XNZ explored more conventional manufacturing options. She modeled a triangular heatsink and even produced a 3D-printed prototype to validate the layout. However, having such a complex and unusually shaped block CNC-machined from metal would have been prohibitively expensive. That limitation pushed the project in an unexpected direction — toward an ancient manufacturing technique rarely associated with modern gaming hardware.
Molten aluminum was poured into the mold (📷: 小宁子 XNZ)
Lost-wax casting, also known as investment casting, has been used in China for thousands of years to produce detailed metal parts. The technique allows complex internal structures to be formed without the high tooling costs of modern machining. Instead of wax, XNZ used PLA plastic to create the sacrificial core, coating it in a heat-resistant shell made of gypsum powder. When heated, the plastic burned away, leaving a cavity that could be filled with molten aluminum to form the final cooling block.
With the most difficult part complete, final assembly was relatively straightforward. The PS5 and Xbox Series X boards were mounted to the cooler, as was a minimal, custom-designed Switch 2 dock. A single 250W power supply is shared by all of the consoles (don’t attempt to use more than one at a time!), and the entire assembly was enclosed in a case inspired by Apple’s cylindrical Mac Pro. The result is a single console that can run three modern gaming platforms without external switching or multiple power cords.
