Ever since the days of the very first PlayStation, Sony’s home consoles have embedded themselves into pop culture; the PS1 was ‘so 90s,’ the PS2 reflected the mysteries of technological progress in the early 2000s, while the PS5 is, love it or hate it, a clean-contoured icon of the here and now.
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With so many different console designs emerging from Sony’s creative headquarters over the decades, we’ve decided to compile and rank them in terms of how they look: not the games, not the internal power, quite simply how they look in your living room/bedroom/gaming cave.
12PlayStation 3 Super-Slim
The ‘Acceptable In The 80s’ Look
Cheap, but really not cheerful. The PS3 Super Slim, with its strange serrated surface that you peeled away to reveal the disc tray, looked like some forgotten Atari 2600 knock off from the 80s.
The combination of gloss with little grooves on the surface made it a filth magnet, though in fairness it was more energy-efficient and reliable than the other PS3 models. But at what cost, we ask.At what cost?
Release Date
Dimensions
27-07-2025
290mm (W) x 60mm (H) x 230mm (D)
The Gray Icon
Ok, in itself, the one where it all started rightly earned its mocking title of ‘GreyStation,’ but it also probably would make it into any list of ‘iconic things from the 90s.’ It embodied the late 90s like the SNES embodied the early 90s, which somehow makes this concrete-gray box loaded with meaning.
But strip that away (hard, we know), and you have a very dull-looking device. There’s no visual flair here, no attempt to hide the seams of the device, no flash of fun: by appearance alone, you’d never have thought this’d become one of the most important consoles of all time.
07-08-2025
275mm (W) x 63.5mm (H) x 190mm (D)
10Playstation 3
The Grand Piano
Upon first unboxing, the OG PS3 made a hell of an impression, with its hefty girth and glossy piano-black chassis. It’s a design that screamed ‘POWER,’maybe a little too loudly, with a bold new typeface that seemed to piggyback off of the Spider-Man movies of the time.
The problem was: it was almost impossible to stop that fragile chassis bearing the scars of the world on it. Moving house? It’d probably come out the other side scratched. Need to reposition it? You’re going to get fingerprints on it. Keep this thing in a glass case, and you have a decent-looking console, but use it like a normal person and it won’t look so hot for long.
07-07-2025
325mm (W) x 98mm (H) x 274mm (D)
9PlayStation 5 Slim
The PS5-But-Slightly-Smaller
Yes, it’s a little bit smaller than the OG PS5 (which by no means makes it small), but we can’t help but be disappointed that Sony didn’t muster up the creativity to offer a design for its PS5 Slim that—like previous Slim models—shook up the template a bit.
It’s literally a slightly smaller PS5. The divisive finned design is still there, but so are the good bits like the replaceable covers and easily accessible interior. It’s smaller thanthe biggest console in the world,so that’s good. It’s just a shame we didn’t see a more interesting shake-up of the base console’s design.
11-??-2023
358mm (W) x 96mm (H) x 216mm (D)
8PlayStation One
The Marshmallow
Nawww, isn’t it justadorable? Sony’s first stab at a ‘Slim’ console was indeed much, much smaller than its original counterpart. With its flumpy super-curvy design and gentle off-white colour, it’s a bit of an outlier in Sony’s otherwise futuristic-looking lineup. In fact, it wouldn’t have looked out of place as a dinky 90s Nintendo console.
That cuteness can be quite divisive however, and it certainly doesn’t have the ‘cool’ factor that most of Sony’s other consoles went for. You gotta love the compactness though, and the screen attachment made it a funky little semi-portable device.
12-06-2025
193mm (W) x 38mm (H) x 144mm (D)
The Sandwich
Condensing the elegant tiered design of the original PS4, the PS4 Slim cuts those sharp angles into curves, and ditches the stylish furrow on the top. That leaves it looking a little on the plain side, but on the other hand, it has a look that smoothly integrates with whatever you have around it.
Beyond that, the PS4 Slim has all the power of the base model, but with greater power efficiency, and quieter fans that address the infamous ‘jet engine’ noise of the original.
18-06-2025
265mm (W) x 39mm (H) x 288mm (D)
6PlayStation 5
The Router
Well, the PS5 is certainly different, we’ll give it that, but when several other consoles in the Playstation lineup count among the best-looking console designs ever, you have to wonder if such a drastic change was needed.
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The PS5 is a 14lb beast, the biggest home console ever created, in fact. And while the wavey panels may make it look ‘lighter,’ they also take up an unnecessary amount of space. You end up with a console that looks like a flashy router. Bonus points for the swappable, customisable panels though!
390mm x 104mm x 260mm
5PlayStation 4 Pro
The Triple Pancake Stack
It gets overlooked, but the PS4 Pro feels like the most natural successor to PS2’s design in Sony’s entire line-up. Like the PS2, it has that stoney blocky quality, but recedes with each of its three successive stacks, making it feel nicely streamlined into its surroundings.
Ultimately, the PS4 Pro lacks that ‘flourish’ to really help it break into the top of the chart (that blue PS2-style font could really have given it that extra nostalgia factor), but it’s a cool, no-nonsense design for a deceptively powerful console.
23-06-2025
327mm (W) x 55mm (H) x 295mm (D)
The Sensible One
Probably the most drastic ‘Slim’ redesign, the PS3 Slim represented not only a smooth new-look console, but entire rebranding, with Sony moving away from the infamous ‘Spiderman font’ of the OG PS3 and back towards the minimal PS2-inspired typeface that endures to this day.
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The console itself was lovely, gentle curved with an all-matte finish except for an invitingly reflective disc tray area (that yes, could smudge, but was also easy to clean). While it may not be the most ambitious design, it does feel kind of timeless.
13-07-2025
290mm (W) x 65mm (H) x 290mm (D)
The Booklet
The PS2 Slim set a standard of slimness that subsequent generations could never match. It wastinywhile still remaining sleek and elegant (unlike the dinky PS One), and wouldn’t look out of place on a bookshelf.
It actually packed in more features than the OG PS2 too, with an IR sensor and ethernet port. The disc tray wasn’t quite as sleek as the base console’s electric one, but it the spinning disc seat did address the original designs' known issues with reading discs.
30-06-2025
231mm (W) x 28mm (H) x 152mm (D)
