There is a stool shaped like an Xbox thumbstick. It’s green and black, it’s roughly the size of a beanbag, and when you lean on it, it tilts.
That’s not a bit. IKEA built it using the original 3D design files from the Xbox controller, and the tilt is intentional, meant to echo the thumbstick’s motion and keep players “comfortably engaged during intense sessions.”
The stool is one of nine pieces in an official Xbox furniture collection IKEA just revealed, designed jointly by teams at both companies. It’s called YXSTABY. Good luck saying that out loud.
The stuff you’d actually put in a living room
Most of the range is straightforward furniture with a gaming job to do. Controller display boxes. TV stands on castors. A side table for corralling the accessories that currently live on your floor.
Then it gets stranger, and better. There’s a green D-pad cushion, which is the pick of the litter. There’s also a D-pad platter, themed after the concave metal D-pad on Xbox Elite pads, which is either a serving dish or a conversation piece depending on how many people you have over.
Why IKEA thinks this sells
The pitch is demographic, not decorative. In a press release, IKEA said YXSTABY reflected “an era where gaming furniture is moving out of teen bedrooms and man caves and into the mainstream living room.”
Translation: the people buying couches now grew up with a controller in their hands, and nobody wants an RGB throne next to the good rug.
Carl Ledbetter, Xbox Head of Design, framed it as an extension of the hardware itself.
“At Xbox, we think a lot about what helps players feel immersed in a game,” Ledbetter said. “The hardware is an important part of that, but so is the world you create around it. Working with IKEA gave us the opportunity to design for the entire gaming experience at home, from the screen to the space around it.”
When you can buy it
The collection goes on sale in the U.K. in October, both online and in IKEA stores. Right now it’s sitting on the Xbox booth at Gamescom, a couple of months ahead of the wider launch.
Which gives you time to do the math on your own living room. Order in October and you could be leaning forward on a thumbstick stool right around GTA 6, or sunk into a D-pad cushion waiting on Fable.
