Sony unveiled the PS5 last week and people have been comparing its futuristic design to all kinds of things. The Tower of Sauron, an over-stuffed Trapper-Keeper, a robot’s labia, you name it and the internet has thunk it. To me personally, it looks like the mouth of a futuristic Blue Whale. I don’t know why that’s what I see, but it just is.
For whatever reason, Sony feels the need to design its consoles in the most impractical ways possible. It wants the console to be stylish and unique, and that’s fine I guess, but the problem is that styles… well, they go out of style.
I’m looking at my shelf right now, at all of those magical dust-collecting chunks of plastic that I used to love so much. Just from here I can see my original Xbox, that behemoth of a console with it’s big X embossed on top. It was so awesome at the time, a beast of a machine, that now looks like an old Uninterruptable Power Supply unit from the late 90’s.
Sitting on top of it, with an equal amount of dust, is my N64. I remember the first time I saw the N64, or “Project Dolphin” as they called it. I remember how cool it looked. Sure, it was a super-light piece of plastic, but at the time, game consoles were still considered toys, so it wasn’t that big a deal. It’s curvy hump on top kinda looked like the Alamo, and I’m a Texas guy, so I dug it.
Moving over to the right, there sits my Gamecube. I have to give Nintendo credit for this one. They skipped stylish and went straight for functionality. Fuck that curvy shit. If it weren’t for the top-loading clamshell tray, it might have even been stackable. They even put a handle on the back as to say “If you really want to rage-toss this motherfucker, we got you covered.” It also probably has one of the top-five coolest menu screens to date. It’s too bad Nintendo always has to Nintendo, and they went and made the discs so damn small. Most developers didn’t want to fuck with the compression and multiple discs so they ended up skipping the system altogether.
Right next to the Gamecube, sitting on its side, is the Dreamcast. That terrifying thing. Every time I booted it up it sounded like the last ten minutes of Terminator. It was loud. When it wasn’t sounding like a gimped Transfomer, it was busy being a 8-pound companion to one of the worst controllers I’ve ever held. I can’t hate the Dreamcast too much, because it really did have some cool games, but that ugly white box it was wrapped in really didn’t age well, and neither did the fact that I can’t play it at night without scaring the cats.
Right next to that thing, also on its side, is the PS3. I probably don’t even need to comment on the look of that thing. It was probably one of the first consoles to ever draw the wrath of the internet for its ridiculous appearance. The George Foreman Grill still sold extremely well, despite the silly barbecue pit aesthetics and it’s bulky footprint. A newer slim model (which is what I own) probably didn’t hurt either.
Finishing out the lineup on the bottom shelf is the PS2, and I have to admit, I think the PS2 still holds up really well, visually. It was a simple black box, which was all it ever really needed to be. My only real gripe was the ridges. Oooooh, the ridges. So many cotton swaps were sacrificed to keep that damn thing clean. After a while I just flat-out gave up, as did so many of my friends and family. The thing about the PS2 was that it was one of the first consoles to readily support DVD playback, so with its popularity came the fact that most people, especially non-gamers, used it as a media box. It was really good in that regard. Because of this, I saw so many PS2’s sitting on shelves, floors, entertainment centers, etc. absolutely caked in dust. When I asked if they ever cleaned it, they would just wipe it with an old sock and be like “Yeah.”
There are a few consoles that aren’t on those shelves. The NES and SNES, I’m sad to say, never survived into my adulthood. I so much would’ve liked them to. The SNES made it to about my 21st year (so around 2001-ish) I do remember talking about the PS2 release while playing Street Fighter 2 Turbo. But one day around that time, it inexplicably just stopped working. I suppose I could’ve had it repaired, but vintage game stores weren’t really a thing yet, mainly because if you wanted old games they were readily available at most flea market stalls and pawn shops.
I don’t really remember what happened to my NES. I want to say I sold it, but I honestly don’t remember. I do still have controllers and the light gun for some reason.
The Xbox 360 sits on a different shelf. It’s white, concave body is holding up fairly well, but that disc tray has been shit for a few years now. I still have a custom-printed faceplate design stuck to the front of it. No, not one of those kickass jobs you’ve seen on the internet, this was a clear plastic faceplate that came with cardboard templates. This here is a 100% original shitty inkjet print job designed by yours truly.
Another console that’s avoided the shelf of doom is the Wii. Despite Nintendo’s complete lack of future-proofing, only supporting 480p literally months after HDTV’s were hitting the market, it still sold pretty well, and the compact size and mostly-square form factor, it still looks pretty nice. The controllers sucked ass, but it is what it is. The reason it’s hooked up to my television is because my 4k television actually does a decent job of upscaling a 480p signal, and the Wii supports Gamecube backward compatibility. It’s literally the only way I can play GCN games on modern televisions without third party emulation or fancy upscalers.
My PS4 looks like an eraser. And it wobbles. I don’t know why Sony made either of these design decisions, but they also chose the Foreman Grill and the robot labia, so take it as you will. I hate, hate the capacitive touch buttons on the front, and in all their infinite wisdom decided to make them so fucking tiny that I have to squint to make out which is which.
I have two Xbox One’s. I have my 2013 launch unit in the living room, which we use as a media box. It’s fucking huge, and it also has the capacitive touch button, which like the PS4, is also a pain in the ass. I think it has something to do with carpets and static electricity, but the damn thing likes to turn itself on randomly throughout the day. Luckily, after the Red Ring of Death debacle, MS over-engineered the XBO, and not only is it quiet, but I’ve never had to worry about it over-heating. It also has those motherfucking ridges though.
The Xbox One X is currently my go-to console. It’s compact and boring, and honestly I love it. They got rid of that damn touch button and put in a classic old-school clicky-type button, and that’s great. It doesn’t randomly turn itself on, which is nice. While I would never stack anything on top of it, I think some people do, which is playing with fire (almost literally) but whatever.
I like that it’s square and boring, because honestly, square and boring is never going to go out of style. The consoles that seem to hold up the best visually are the square, boring ones. The Gamecube, PS2, Xbox One, and (for the most part) the PS4 are the consoles that can sit on a shelf for a decade and still look just fine. The Xbox Series X, when it comes out, will sit on a shelf and look just fine year after year because it’s just a box.
And that’s where I think Sony missed the mark with its console. Does it look sleek and sexy? Sure. Is it stylish? I guess so. Is it going to look like a big, dusty, ridiculous object in ten years? Absolutely.
