// WIRED US/UK — HARDWARE & GADGET
Sony Wants You to Forget About Discs With Its Gorgeous Transparent Controllers
Sony has a collection of colorful, translucent cosmetics for its PlayStation consoles and controllers. Announced Wednesday, the Prism collection brings three new, gorgeous color options that conjure a nostalgic, transparent tech feel.
They come in Flare Orange, Emerald Green, and Graphite Gray. (Based on the pictures, the gray looks more like a blue to me.) You can get Sony’s DualSense PlayStation 5 controllers in the Prism design or opt for PS5 console covers. On the controllers, translucent plastic wraps around almost the entire device’s frame, letting you view the components inside. On the console cover version, the transparency is more limited—you can see only the fan and a few other components.
The Prism Collection DualSense wireless controllers cost $85, while the console covers cost $75. Preorders start on November 10, but the collection won’t ship until February 4. Those are roughly the same prices as existing controllers and covers, though on the higher end. Basic color controllers start at $74 on the PlayStation website. Covers start around $59. The more colorful options on both products go up from there.
Apple’s original iMac largely popularized translucent, colorful tech that lets you see inside the machine. The look was en vogue for a while in seminal devices like the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo’s Game Boy Color.
That see-through aesthetic was a signature in the early 2000s. (My first CD player had a translucent top, and you could see the disc spinning around the whole time.) Twenty-some years later, it’s being revived as nostalgia bait in a transparent tech renaissance. You can find the transparent look in everything from gaming handhelds to a Theragun. Sony also has a transparent pair of earbuds.
Reminiscing about the good ol’ days might also remind you that Sony’s old consoles used to have disc drives. In July, Sony made a controversial decision to end production of physical game discs starting in 2028. Ownership advocates have decried the choice, noting that Sony’s own terms of service state that buying a digital copy of a game does not mean the customer owns it. It’s yet another move toward the end of physical media.