Is it me, or has Sony’s customary mid-cycle ‘Slim’ console arrived without much fanfare this generation? It feels like in previous generations, those Slim models were pushed and marketed with the enthusiasm of entire new products, but this time round, the PS5 Slim has seemingly slinked in through the backdoor.
And I kind of see why, in fairness, because while in previous generations, the Slim models were released to right the design wrongs of the base models (like the PS3 Slim and PSOne), or simply as extraordinarily compact variants of already good-looking, if somewhat clunky, base models (PS2 Slim), the PS5 Slim is neither particularly compact nor particularly good-looking. It’s just a slightly smaller version of the PS5 which, considering that the PS5 is quite possibly the largest home console released, doesn’t really say that much. It’s still a pretty big boy.
An Imperfect Design
I get that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but I’m not the only one who feels that the PS5 is one of the uglier Playstation models ever released. That white plastic chassis looks like it might yellow over time (the controllers already have plenty of reports of yellowing), not to mention that the white shell is rather unforgiving when it comes to fingerprints, pizza stains, and whatever else gamers might have on their fingers while fumbling around the disc drive or repositioning the console.
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But beyond that, the spatially uneconomical tapered design makes it look like someone’s been trying to pry the damn thing open with their hands to get to its glossy inner chassis (which, by the way, is also very unkind when it comes to scratches and marks).
Ok, Ok. Enough bellyaching about the design; I think it sucks, but others might disagree. Either way though, the ‘Slim’ point in a Sony console’s life cycle has historically been an opportunity to vary things up, and offer customers a bit of a choice about the look of the device that’s going to be their living room companion for however-many years.
I loved the iconic OG PS2 design, for instance, but I really appreciated the fact that the Slim variant had the size and dimensions of a not-too-large book. A bit like with the PSOne in relation to the OG PlayStation, that thing wascute, not to mention it was actually more feature-packed than the original model, with an integrated IR receiver and modem.
Were these things objectively better than the original designs? That’s a matter of personal taste, and nostalgia often leans us towards the original models, but the point is they offered us a stylisticchoice.
With the PS4, the Slim model cleaned up the design of the original a bit, removing the glossy element that’s been a weird tendency for Sony to include in its consoles since the OG PS3 days (when will they learn?). The difference was subtle, but it was small, much more matte, and overall prettier.
License For Fun
Slim models have always been a bit of a license for Sony to have some fun with the base console template, downscale it, and address issues with it, but it baffles me that they were so pleased with the base PS5 design (and assumed all PlayStation owners loved it as well) that after presumably 30 minutes of lazy deliberation, they decided that ‘yep, let’s just do exactly the same thing, but smaller.’
As someone who hasn’t jumped onboard the PS5 bandwagon yet, I was hoping that waiting a little longer would reward me with a cool alternative design, because Ireallydidn’t see that strange finned machine in my whole living room setup (my PS4 Pro, on the other hand, blends so elegantly with my sideboard that it’s almost like it’s built into it).
There are obviously other factors in my decision to hold off on a PS5 for now (PC man at heart, here), but a new Slim design could’ve been the nudge I needed. As things stand, I’ll hold out for a possible PS5 Pro down the line, and just hope it’s not a grotesquely inflated version of the same design.Again.
