Why doesn't Xbox consoles(360 and newer) have HDMI CEC?

How does this work extensively?

CEC is a bidirectional bus. All connected devices which support CEC communicate.

At some point, there was an Xbox One update which included limited CEC support. This allows signal switching to your sink from a source. However, actual control is IR blaster only (i.e. Kinect).

Blame the stubborn engineers and executives who designed the One by committee. They were creating a console for themselves rather than what the market (gamers...who play video games) wanted. Microsoft employees were the only ones applauding during the reveal
at E3 2013; they had convinced themselves they'd done a good job. It's scary when very smart people become oblivious.

Just any random device? How does this work extensively? Does this just enable CEC on the primary HDMI out or is there some weird trick to plugging in my receiver to the HDMI in on the xbox and the input turns into the output but with HDMI CEC?

I believe the Xbox one/360 line should be updated to support CEC

Not happening. IR only.

Minor workaround: plug a device with CEC into your Xbox's HDMI input. When you turn it on, your CEC supported display(s) should change inputs.

There were a lot of launch issues and flak that they fixed, some immediately like tying the disc to your account policy, the required internet connection to be always on and the privacy issues with the Kinect.

Some issues were fixed later with the removal of the forced bundle of Xbox one and kinect, lowering the price.

I believe CEC is a launch issue that hasn't gotten enough attention so it was never fixed and the people who stuck with ir only were able to keep it that way.

I go in the settings to try to find this issue and I end up finding some kind of control and punch in my devices into the device control area. A 65" Sony TV and an Onkyo receiver to make everything work as seemlessly as possible. Note: I am borrowing my
roommates Xbox One X console from his area of the room to mine and it was expected that we'll play on the big 4k tv and have my one S on his smaller screen until I can swap out for my one X on my own. I end up not playing games for a while and he prefers his
own area and the one X has a bigger hdd full of his games so he swaps the consoles to his area to play some of his games. I let it be since I wasn't interested in playing for a while. Both of us got annoyed and confused as to why my tv and receiver are turning
on every time he turns on his one X and if it's at night or I'm away he gets really annoyed he has to turn around and turn off my system every time he wants to play a game. We both dive into the system settings separately and are not sure where this control
setting is. Time passes with this continuous issue, I eventually upgrade my receiver to a high end Yamaha 9ch system and my Sony 4k to an LG 4k OLED. The issues have gone and past. I eventually find the setting as I'm randomly browsing the settings and find
there is ir control on the system. I work in specialty audio video sales so I should know these systems well and it is easy to say that any HDMI device in the past 5-10 years supports HDMI control since it is just magic. I get home and hit any button on my
shield tv remote and everything works in unison, the tv and receiver power on, make sure they are on the correct HDMI source independently. They allow extended control too where I can use my shield tv remote as normal to control the shield tv device, it has
volume buttons which pass through control to the receiver, I could even grab my receiver remote, or my tv remote to navigate the menus on my shield tv because it can pass through simple controls such as direction, select and back to the current device in use.

I sell TV's and home audio and have to deal with making sure everything has the right hookup and everything can talk with each other. Due to the magic of HDMI CEC, any tv within the last 5-10ish(since HDMI 1.4 or 1.3 I think) years can work with any Blu
Ray player, can control the volume of any HDMI connected soundbar or receiver. This works perfectly with the Nintendo Switch, with the PS3, the PS4 and limitless devices which makes me think this is easy to implement because if it took a lot of development
then there would be less than 1/4 or 1/2 of those devices to support the standard because there are so many companies out there who would rather put their development money in other places.

There are some outliers in this field which are the Wii U(which used IR from the gamepad to control tv volume and power) and the Xbox one line of consoles. I feel there is a stand on one side of the fence or the other and Xbox is deliberately avoiding the
HDMI CEC standard because they stood on the IR side of the street thinking it would either separate them from the PlayStation line of consoles since the PS3 had CEC. IR control is great, especially for older devices that have not been updated recently such
as older DVD players, vcr players and much older TV's and much older cable boxes(that Xbox one line was trying to get some good integration with). There are the other side where ir would not work and this is where a lot of people out there are having their
media center and devices in a closet or a remote cabinet and this is where everything using HDMI CEC thrives and where universal remotes had to adapt with ir eyes near each device making it a much more complex setup.

I believe the Xbox one/360 line should be updated to support CEC with the one line having an option with using HDMI CEC or ir or an advanced option to allow both on for advanced users needing a particular setup. This would allow everything to work seemlessly.
This would allow my coworker who just wants to watch 4k Blu Ray discs on his daughter's one x to use his tv remote to control playback instead of a controller which he had no idea how to use until I came over and showed him how.

Conclusion and tldr;

Xbox team, I know you can update both console lines to support this with probably one guy working on it for about a day or two or less. Please get with the times and use the current standard called HDMI CEC.

I only get passionate with things like this and write so much because this is a laughable occurance for such a high tech device to not support such a basic feature to the point where it is a blanket statement that everything but the Xbox One line supports
HDMI CEC. It is dumb that I even have to ask and beg that it hopefully arrives in a future update to Xbox one consoles and comes as standard on Xbox series consoles. Sure, you guys messed up, own up to it and fix it!

Thanks,

-Aaron

Aaron:

I appreciate the passionate feedback for our Xbox developers. As a technologist and enthusiast it definitely can be frustrating to see companies "drop the ball" when the solution seems so simple. As an Xbox Ambassador, I empathize; HDMI CEC is a modern standard.
My recommendation is to literally copy and paste this into the Feedback Hub. If you're on Windows 10, you can press Win + F and paste in your post. The feedback hub gives you a "reddit-style" post where other users can upvote your post and hopefully get the
Xbox team to view it.