It may not look “modern” anymore, but the flat greys of Sony’s early PlayStation hardware brings wide smiles to those of us who grew up playing classics like Resident Evil and Final Fantasy.
Though years of play wore down the originals, Sony’s issuing original PlayStation-themed gamepads and headphones in honor of the orig nal console’s 20th anniversary. They look like this:
The brand’s seen a variety of applications in the past 20 years: four home game consoles, two handheld game consoles, countless services, peripherals and, now, a virtual reality headset, all branded “PlayStation.”
The gamepad, however, is especially iconic.
Sony’s “DualShock” line of gamepads has become a modern symbol for gaming, both literally and figuratively. When you’re clicking through a menu of media types on a modern phone, a regular stand-in for the word “games” is a gamepad that looks distinctly similar to the classic DualShock design. The design set a standard for modern gamepad design. Both Nintendo and Microsoft took cues from Sony’s original DualShock controller design when looking to their own gamepads.
Ironically, the first DualShock controllers were introduced two years after the original PlayStation launched; the gamepad seen above is intended to celebrate the original console’s anniversary, not the gamepad itself.
The 20th anniversary edition DualShock 4 gamepad for the PlayStation 4 and Wireless Headset arrive this September, for $64.99 and $99.99 (respectively). The nostalgia is free.
