PS5 has a ‘five-dimension’ design, was almost bigger at one point

Happy next-generation week everyone! Whether you’re going for Xbox Series X/S or PlayStation 5, this is that rare time in the gaming industry where gamers of all creeds and fandoms come together and are united in a common purpose: To justify their purchase in a meaningless pissing war.  While I’ve got a feeling that SSD performance will be the new metric that games will have their value judged in, each console does bring something unique to the table that its competition can’t do.

For example, the Xbox Series X fails massively in the size department, what with it being a chunky slab of obsidian plastic in comparison to the PS5 because bigger is better. We’ve mentioned before that the PS5 is gargantuan in scale, requiring at least eight Boeing CH-47 Chinook helicopters to move it into optimum gaming position. It’s big. Big! BIG. Here’s the real kicker: The PS5 was at one point even bigger.

“When I started drawing, it was much larger even though I didn’t know what engineering was going to do,” senior art director Yujin Morisawa said to the Washington Post.

It’s kind of funny that engineering actually told me it’s too big. So, I actually had to shrink it down a little bit from the first drawing. It’s kind of funny that engineering actually told me it’s too big. So, I actually had to shrink it down a little bit from the first drawing. We wanted to get it much smaller, so it’s the perfect size right now. If I made it thinner, there would be less air flow to it. It would disturb the player while they are playing. Form-factor wise, I drew a perfect line around it and tried hit the perfect size.

That’s interesting stuff, primarily because I’m fascinated that the look of the PS5 began with pen on paper. I’ve been warming up to the look of the PS5 over the last couple of months, initially hating the design and then actually appreciating its wackiness the more I stared and noticed small details on it. What Morisawa’s console gets right in the design department, is that it definitely looks like a futuristic piece of gaming technology. “I came up with the term ‘five dimensions,’ Morisawa said of his creation.

When thinking about the experience we have, it’s kind of, you are living in a parallel world or you’re jumping around time or space. This is the PlayStation 5, so five dimensions really fits. I wanted to build out the design concept as the player’s energy or emotion, and try to conform to that. I think that [design] expressed the aura of a powerful machine. It looks organic maybe, but it came from a very precise measurement.

Sony starts its next-gen gaming adventure this week in several markets around the world, before rolling out locally and to other regions. Granted there are some concerns about the PS5 such as its current inability to allow its exclusive games to be stored on an external hard drive (you’ll have to redownload them instead if you free up space), but a sexy console design is one feather in its cap that’s going to grab a lot of eyeballs when more stock is available.

Last Updated: November 10, 2020