Playstation Festival 2000 impressions - PS2 Packaging

[02.22.00] » The mother of all box art.

   Amongst some of the unexpected things at the Playstation Festival 2000 was the showing of the a full range of the Playstation 2's Japanese packaging, including hardware, software, and accessories. While the packaging will do little to affect the sales numbers of the system, Sony's choices are definitely worth taking a look at. J.T. Kauffman tells us what to expect.

   While Japanese packaging tends to be fairly simple, Sony has taken a step further and gone for minimalistic with the system box. The package is very, very blue. In fact, the front of the box bears no other color besides blue, and a single shade of blue at that. Going for mere name recognition, Sony has placed a white PS2 logo smack dab in the middle of the box, with 'Playstation 2' in white directly underneath. Normally, the rest of the box's front design would now be described, but unfortunately there is nothing else to describe. The front of the box is simply the PS2 logo with 'Playstation 2' under it on a field of blue. For those familiar with the Japanese Dreamcast packaging, it is not unlike that, but much, much simpler. The rest of the box is similar to the current Japanese Playstation box, with contents and warnings on the sides and back, white on blue still being used. The only thing not in white or blue is the line of accessories displayed on the back at the bottom: black and shades of grey are used.

   "But what about the accessories?" you scream. Fear not, as the entire lineup of accessories to be available at launch was displayed at the show as well. As per the system box, accessory packaging are minimalistic. Someone at Sony got creative, though, and has chosen to color code the accessory line, breaking it up into three types. System accessories, including the two stands, are blue, matching the main system box. Accessories used directly in play, including the DualShock2 controller, the 8MB Memory Card, and the MultiTap, are yellow. Finally, the wide selection of cords and hookups for the system were dressed in green. All of the packages were simple, with the PS2 name as well as the name of the accessory in white. The only non-Sony accessory displayed was Konami's Drummania controller and stand set (which actually includes the game software as well, although it has its own packaging). Breaking greatly from the rest of the PS2 accessories, Drummania features a normal BEMANI packaging scheme with a slightly techno look to it. The box is long and has a handle for easy carrying, and prominently bears the Drummania logo. Also featured are the original Drummania arcade machine, as well as the front of the software packaging and a photo of the drum controller. By far the most colorful package of the accessory bunch, it was also the most memorable and pleasant to look at.

   Finally, the aspect that many gamers are most interested in, a selection of box art was on display as well. As mentioned previously, all of the PS2 games are packaged in black DVD 'keepsake' cases. For those unfamiliar with keepsake cases, they are made of hard plastic, open like a book, or like original Sega Genesis game packages. Attached to the package is sheet of clear plastic surrounds the game like the dust cover of a hardbound book, and holds the cover illustration in place. While the inside was not shown, expect the disc to be on the right, with the book held in place on the left. Roughly the size of a VHS tape, this style of packaging is widely adored in the DVD community, and should work well for games. The cover illustrations bear a strip of black in the upper 1/5 of the package. Exactly as in the PS2 demo discs given out at the show, this strip has the Playstation 2 name on the right, and the Playstation logo on the left. The bar continues onto the spine of the game, which also bears the Playstation 2 name. It is also possible that the bar adorns the back as well, but the backs of all of the games were hidden from view, it is impossible to tell. While the actual illustrations obviously differ from game to game, it is worth noting that the backgrounds and the lower 4/5 of the spine differened widely in color, with at least black, white, and red all being used (Kessen, Eternal Ring, and Street Fighter EX3, respectively). The strays from current Playstation packaging which, in all but a few cases, has a standard spine color (for instance black for North America and white for Japan).

   After spending quite a bit of time looking at the packaging, I concluded that the hardware and accessory schemes didn't seem as successful as the current Japanese Playstation or Dreamcast packaging. It appears that Sony based the packaging on the simplistic boxes that the above systems use, but that they went just a bit too far, making the packaging look almost generic. Of course, it's unlikely that this will truly affect the sales of the system much, as the packaging tells you all that you really need to know: the Playstation 2 is inside.