You need a CD flap, and that’s the biggest visible feature of the console, so best to make it the centrepiece, and design around it. And CDs are circular so yeah, let’s follow that in the design.
You need two buttons, one for power and one for open. Symmetry is always appealing, so make them symmetrical and balanced on both sides.
This post made me realize just how few consoles had a CD flap. Is it just the Playstation, Dreamcast, Saturn, and Gamecube? Kind of weird how that was the default for CD players pretty much forever, but not many consoles went with that. PS2, Xbox, and everything after those had some kind of tray or slot. Maybe it was because they could visually stand apart from their competitors more that way.
For some perspective, CD trays, like the PS2 and Xbox had, that retracted mechanically were viewed as sleek and futuristic, and that’s why slot loaders like the Wii and PS3 gained traction too.
It was an aesthetic choice, like the move from green LEDs to blue, though that has historic significant as blue LEDs are a relatively recent invention as the were incredibly difficult to figure out, so blue LEDs were seen as futuristic and opulent and used in everything consumer electronics for a while.
You need a CD flap, and that’s the biggest visible feature of the console, so best to make it the centrepiece, and design around it. And CDs are circular so yeah, let’s follow that in the design.
You need two buttons, one for power and one for open. Symmetry is always appealing, so make them symmetrical and balanced on both sides.
Very much an example of “form follows function”
This post made me realize just how few consoles had a CD flap. Is it just the Playstation, Dreamcast, Saturn, and Gamecube? Kind of weird how that was the default for CD players pretty much forever, but not many consoles went with that. PS2, Xbox, and everything after those had some kind of tray or slot. Maybe it was because they could visually stand apart from their competitors more that way.
For some perspective, CD trays, like the PS2 and Xbox had, that retracted mechanically were viewed as sleek and futuristic, and that’s why slot loaders like the Wii and PS3 gained traction too.
It was an aesthetic choice, like the move from green LEDs to blue, though that has historic significant as blue LEDs are a relatively recent invention as the were incredibly difficult to figure out, so blue LEDs were seen as futuristic and opulent and used in everything consumer electronics for a while.