PS5 will get “beautiful” and “hopefully radical” special editions

(Image credit: Sony)

last updated 17 June 2020

The PS5 design has certainly divided opinion around the world, with many a little nonplussed by its unconventional looks, uncharitably comparing it to everything from an ISP router to a Dubai skyscraper.

Anyone who’s not too happy about having the space-age design under their TV may want to hold out a little longer, as someone very close to the project has hinted that new designs could follow.

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Word comes from PlayStation’s vice president of UX design Matt MacLaurin who broke the news on Microsoft-owned LinkedIn of all places. “While this is the flagship/reference, you can count on even more beautiful (and hopefully radical) special editions,” MacLaurin wrote in a comment on LinkedIn, VG247 reports.

“Customization with special editions will be beyond anything seen before,” he added in a separate comment. “Someone mocked up a wooden one on Reddit and it look [sic.] crazy good.” If you’re wondering what MacLaurin defines as “crazy good”, this is said Reddit post as far as we can tell.

This could be a bit of a departure for Sony. While there have been special edition PlayStation consoles in the past, you’d be hard pressed to call any of them particularly “radical”. For PlayStation 4, they’ve typically been different colored skins on top of the traditional body. Said special editions usually end up in short supply and are subsequently sold for extortionate fees on the pre-owned market. The 20th anniversary PS4, in the same classic grey hue of the original PlayStation, will now set you back over $1,000, for example.

If special edition consoles don’t particularly appeal, there’s a good chance that Sony will end up making a smaller, lighter version of the PS5 in the next few years, if past form is anything to go by. Every PlayStation ever made has been shrunk by Sony eventually, between three and six years after launch.

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