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this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2024
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You need a CD flap, and that's the biggest visible feature of the console, so best to make it the centrepiece, and design around it. And CDs are circular so yeah, let's follow that in the design.
You need two buttons, one for power and one for open. Symmetry is always appealing, so make them symmetrical and balanced on both sides.
Very much an example of "form follows function"
This post made me realize just how few consoles had a CD flap. Is it just the Playstation, Dreamcast, Saturn, and Gamecube? Kind of weird how that was the default for CD players pretty much forever, but not many consoles went with that. PS2, Xbox, and everything after those had some kind of tray or slot. Maybe it was because they could visually stand apart from their competitors more that way.
For some perspective, CD trays, like the PS2 and Xbox had, that retracted mechanically were viewed as sleek and futuristic, and that's why slot loaders like the Wii and PS3 gained traction too.
It was an aesthetic choice, like the move from green LEDs to blue, though that has historic significant as blue LEDs are a relatively recent invention as the were incredibly difficult to figure out, so blue LEDs were seen as futuristic and opulent and used in everything consumer electronics for a while.
The PS2 slim has a CD flap, that might be the last console to have one
There's also whatever is going on with the PS3 super slim but I think that is in a category of its own
Oh, and there's the Wii mini too. Can't think of any newer system with a DVD flap.
Cost. I think all of the 5th generation were top loaders. On the cd audio side nice stackable separates were tray or slot. Cheap stand-alones were top.
6th was a split but then I think the perception of slot or tray loading being more prestigious moved everyone to slot/tray.
Plus I think top loaders might have been less secure. I certainly remember a number of physical mods or swap techniques that defeated top loader security very easily.
Same thing happened with videos as well. Started with manual top loaders and then moved to slot.
The original Xbox had a tray because it was basically a PC, and had a standard IDE CD-ROM with some minor changes. They weren't standing apart, they were following the new standard of the time, PCs, and it was probably more to do with cost savings by using common parts. They also had a standard IDE HDD. Even their weird proprietary controller port they used on the original Xbox is just USB! Its the same wires, they just screwed up the pinout. you can replace one of those weird controller ports with a normal female USB and then plug all sorts of USB devices into the Xbox and they just work.
I only single out the Xbox because I've taken them apart, I imagine the PS2 is similar. At least PS2 didn't intentionally mess up their USB ports.