In a recent feature on Fast Company’s design page, Teague – the design consultant firm that designed the original Xbox – offered their opinions on how Microsoft’s competition, PlayStation 4 holds up from a design standpoint.
In Teague’s not so humble opinion, while the PlayStation 4 and it’s controller both represent two beautifully design pieces of technology, they maintain an individuality in design that fails to make the entire system feel like a cohesively designed unit.
Teague goes on to critique the placement of the power button on the console, siting that its proximity to the disc open/close tray makes it a less than optimal choice. They also criticize Sony’s decision to make the console a parallelogram as opposed to a right angled rectangle, as it will likely share shelf space with rectangularly boxed items.
When it comes to the controller, Teague starts to get positive. They call the controller a high end piece of hardware, despite it’s disconnect from the overall theme of the system as a unit.
“If this is in fact the final act for home consoles boxes, Sony may have just missed the mark on creating a truly climactic finish. Our thought is that they should have put everything into the new controller. This should be the face of the PS4. The console needs to be supportive, not central to the gaming experience,” they said.
Quite interesting indeed.
Source: Fastcodesign
