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Well, i guess that's for you to decide.
Gamecube - Incorporates the common japanese ideals of making the product as small as possible while maintaining function and cutting edge technology.
Its 'innovative' shape and unusual colour are aesthetic, and at the same time fresh and new, showing a commitment to change and trying new ideas.
X-Box - Like a 300lb trucker driving a rig pulling 7 trailers of massive loads through the arizona desert, the x-box screams 'bigger is better', and boasts massive power beneath its exterior. At the same time, the unelaborate housing is geared almost exclusively towards function - no wasted time on style here, but the power can't be argued with.
PS2 - A difficult one to place. It tries to look good, but lets be honest, like most europeans it doesn't really pull it off. It does what it was made to do very well, with the americanesque power under the hood, and 'what it was made to do' is as much as possible - a veritable home entertainment centre in one box, leaning towards the japanese developmental technology, though the reapperance of the ps1 pad is more in keeping with traditional values.
Sony taking the better points of everything around it, and mixing them together into one product.
When consoles reach such a global market, it's strange to see the strength of 2 of the machines' local, almost stereotypical cultural influences. Only sony seem to have been able to transcend these barriers, but given the international nature of the company is this really surprising? If we see gamecube take hold of the east, x-box in the west and ps2 dominationg europe, i know i for one wouldn't be surprised.
Gamecube - Incorporates the common japanese ideals of making the product as small as possible while maintaining function and cutting edge technology.
Its 'innovative' shape and unusual colour are aesthetic, and at the same time fresh and new, showing a commitment to change and trying new ideas.
X-Box - Like a 300lb trucker driving a rig pulling 7 trailers of massive loads through the arizona desert, the x-box screams 'bigger is better', and boasts massive power beneath its exterior. At the same time, the unelaborate housing is geared almost exclusively towards function - no wasted time on style here, but the power can't be argued with.
PS2 - A difficult one to place. It tries to look good, but lets be honest, like most europeans it doesn't really pull it off. It does what it was made to do very well, with the americanesque power under the hood, and 'what it was made to do' is as much as possible - a veritable home entertainment centre in one box, leaning towards the japanese developmental technology, though the reapperance of the ps1 pad is more in keeping with traditional values.
Sony taking the better points of everything around it, and mixing them together into one product.
When consoles reach such a global market, it's strange to see the strength of 2 of the machines' local, almost stereotypical cultural influences. Only sony seem to have been able to transcend these barriers, but given the international nature of the company is this really surprising? If we see gamecube take hold of the east, x-box in the west and ps2 dominationg europe, i know i for one wouldn't be surprised.
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I like my PS2. It does look futuristic, and it looks much better in the flesh than in the photos.
XBox- I'm not totally over the moon about the look of it but it still looks Ok. Its black and large, just like a DVD player or video recorder, so it won't look out of place under your telly.
GC-Black and silver look good but any of the other colours are just plain bad. The handle is a bit crap and the overall design looks wierd.
PS2-Tries to look futureistic, but doesn't pull it off at all. Again its OK but the two controller ports still annoy me.
To be honest I really like the DC and N64 designs, there the best.
GC-Black and silver look good but any of the other colours are just plain bad. The handle is a bit crap and the overall design looks wierd.
PS2-Tries to look futureistic, but doesn't pull it off at all. Again its OK but the two controller ports still annoy me.
To be honest I really like the DC and N64 designs, there the best.
Yes, the PS2 has several dedicated plants in Japan.
Speaking of keeping costs down the xbox manufacturing factories are in Mexico where labour is cheap. Does anyone know where the PS2 and GC factories are? If they are in Japan labour is expensive there.
I bet that if you opened up the Xbox, it'll be arranged like a PC, with absolutely LOADS of empty space. However, if you opened up a PS2 or GC they'd be really compact. Lazy Americans. They'll be doing it to keep the costs down, you know.
Thats true Turbonutter. This also shows the difference with Amerecan and Japanese technology, the xbox is american and huge while the PS2 and GC are much smaller.
Yes, but actually the Japanese have an external HDD. The PS2 went through some major restylings Japan->Europe, the most significant being the reduction in size, and the addition of onboard DVD software.
The GC and The Ps2 are kinda similar considering that the PS2 is like half empty because of the space left out for the HDD and we all know that the GC is the smallest of all the next gen consoles but I think its utilised all the space.
But they were all just a joke! They weren't serious attempts at styling the next-gen consoles, it was just stereotyping the current consoles and expanding the main features into its successor. They were like "charictures" of the current consoles, combined with a bit of humourous prediction.
The consoles like the GameSphere and PS3 over exagerate the points in the topic.
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