PS5 designer on the size, the shape and his feelings on the reaction

The design of the PS5 has been a major talking point every since it was revealed – personally we’re still unsure about it, but we love its sense of occasion and the brilliant little details. Now, Yujin Morisawa, the designer behind the PlayStation 5’s unusual shape has given a lengthy interview with the Washington Post. 

Given the size of the console, it’s amusing that Morisawa actually drew it even larger in his early efforts: “When I started drawing, it was much larger even though I didn’t know what engineering was going to do… It’s kind of funny that engineering actually told me it’s too big. So, I actually had to shrink it down a little bit from the first drawing.”

What was clearer from the off was the designers desire to really create something new.

“Should it look like the PlayStation 4’s successor or should we go beyond whatever we designed before? We decided to go beyond, because everybody’s trying to achieve something beyond what we had,” he notes insightfully that standing still would not be enough.

And on its unusual shape he noted, somewhat cryptically: “I tried to sculpt the invisible mass in between the player and the mechanical engineering. That’s how I describe it. There’s something in between hardware and the player, and that should be expressed.”

“I came up with the term “five dimensions.” When thinking about the experience we have, it’s kind of, you are living in a parallel world or you’re jumping around time or space. This is the PlayStation 5, so five dimensions really fits.”

Sometimes less is more, and personally we love the removal of the coloured buttons from the controller, on which Morisawa commented: “Yes, except for a special editions, we’ve always used those colors. For the PlayStation 5, we tried to eliminate what was already there. I wanted to simplify it and make it universal. The shape’s pattern already shows what the button is going to be. You really don’t need a color for the buttons. So I made it one tone.”

And, we’re very glad, he’s entirely unphased by some of the more negative public reaction to the console’s appearance, saying he was even glad that it was ‘divisive’.

“Well, that’s something I want to achieve all the time, so I think it was a good reaction. If you look at something really new, you react and say “what is it?” You don’t know how to react to it. When you look closer, you actually see some familiar structure to it. You kind of understand afterwards. It’s really something beyond what we had already. But the skeleton was always square shapes and circles. There’s a precise measurement to it so you feel comfortable when you actually look at the object.”

Read more at Launcher, the Washington Posts games outlet.