If you are thinking of picking up the Sony PlayStation 5 (PS5), it only comes in one colour: white. You can strike out using a custom faceplate since Sony closed that option, so skinning your console with a custom sticker is the only option left if you want an all black PS5. Unfortunately, custom skin maker Dbrand, recently announced on Reddit that it was cancelling all pre-orders of its PS5 skins and refunding its customers.
If are not familiar with Dbrand’s work, their skins are famous for seamlessly wrapping around a product that it looks like it is one with the device. A quick check on the Internet archive Wayback Machine showed that the company wasted no time in opening up orders for its PS5 skins back in July after Sony revealed the final design of its next generation console. Prices for Dbrand’s skins, where each piece was sold separately to fit different parts of the console, started from USD9.95 (~RM40.85) and ran up to USD14.95 (~RM61.38).
The company explained, in a surprisingly crass though candid Reddit post, that it was incredibly difficult to create a skin that overlays perfectly with the PS5. The company said the PS5’s unique shape made it very difficult to design an adhesive that effectively covers all areas of the console.
According to Dbrand, no matter how you warp the PS5 there will always be bits of white exposed. It even posted some samples of its prototype skins, which can check out in the gallery below.
In the end, Dbrand decided not to proceed selling the PS5 skins because it believed users would find it too difficult to apply and would only result in more customer complaints. In the post, the company said:
We’ve seen you a***** try to apply the corner of a smartphone skin. Trust us when we say you can’t handle an application that’s 9x the size. The truth here is that we have no interest in selling a product that will generate a dozen customer complaints for every purchase.
The company went on to warn interested PS5 fans not to buy a custom PS5 skin, especially if they promised a “perfect-looking, full-coverage PS5 skin”. They were all but certain that such skins wouldn’t look good on a PS5 at all.
Curious to see how the PS5 would look like in a matte black skin? You can check out the video below by YouTuber Dave Lee. He applied a skin on his PS5 unit but only on the outer face plate, the inner sides were still white. That may be annoying to some people but personally, I kind of like the contrasting colours.
Many PS fans having been hoping that Sony would introduce a black version of the PS5 during its initial release period but the PlayStation maker has not announced any plans to do so.
While it is true that Sony is only launching one variant of the PS5, there is no stopping them creating another version of the console in another colour several years down the line. In all honesty, there is a good chance that after the initial first two years of the PS5’s release, Sony may release a different colour variant of the console as they have shown to have done so in the past.
The PS5 will be coming to Malaysia on 11 December. Though if you are trying to pick up a unit, it might be quite challenging as the console sold out almost immediately when it opened for pre-order in Malaysia.
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