Game Consoles Should Be Cuter

There is a gendered element at work here; making the console heavy and emphasizing “power and performance” does send a certain old school “hardcore gamer” message (no girls allowed, in other words). But no matter who you are, you’re impacted by the way that your electronics look, and it influences how you feel about them. Look back at this old 1995 study, “Apparent usability vs. inherent usability.” It’s about ATM machines, and how people react to their design. The long and short of it is that when ATMs are aesthetically appealing, people tend towards perceiving them as being easier to use.

That’s fascinating in and of itself, and if you ask me, it’s a clue as to why the Nintendo Switch has sold so well. Is it actually the best console on the market during the time period in which it was released? We could debate that. But we all know it’s cute-looking, and it’s easy to see how it can fit into your household and your life, the same as the other aesthetically appealing electronics you’ve chosen (your phone, your headphones, etc). But the Steam Deck and the forthcoming Xbox handheld? They look like big black clunky boxes. They aren’t particularly fun to look at, and that means subconsciously, we might also be assuming they’ll be complicated or unwieldy to use.

That assumption poses even more of an issue for the prospective female customer. Here’s a 2020 study, which found that men and women differ in their own self-estimations of their technological capabilities. “Gender role beliefs, according to which women are expected to be less interested in and less capable of using technologies than men, have been discussed as one major reason for these differences,” the abstract reads. “Such differing attributions of women and men can induce negative experiences in terms of negative feelings and can reinforce the feelings of uncertainty experienced by women.”

And yet, if I asked an Xbox PR person whether the company was intending to market that new handheld exclusively to men and boys, they’d probably balk at the question. After all, Xbox’s marketing has pretty clearly pivoted to a “gaming for everyone” message, showcasing diverse players in advertisements all the time nowadays. Xbox’s new handheld, though, and many other gaming consoles, suggest otherwise—albeit implicitly.

Even if you don’t care about that aspect, though, it’s still ridiculous how ugly these things are, and it’s baffling to me that Nintendo is the only major console manufacturer that seems to care about giving players more options to customize their consoles. Also, I’m sad that there aren’t more Joy-Con customization options for the Switch 2 yet, because I don’t like how boring it looks, and I think it’s a bad sign that the Switch 2 looks more like a Steam Deck now. Rather than seeing Nintendo’s console look more like the other consoles on the market, I’d much prefer to see those other consoles becoming more customizable, and yes, cuter.

I do personally want a “shrink it and pink it” version of the Xbox handheld, because I’m cringe like that. But I also want other colors and versions for people who aren’t me—versions of the device that look cute according to any number of definitions. Aesthetics are personal; taste is personal. And most importantly of all, I do not want my next PlayStation console to look anything remotely like the monstrosity that’s been sitting in my living room this whole time.

Maddy Myers has worked as a video game critic and journalist since 2007; she has previously worked for Polygon, Kotaku, The Mary Sue, Paste Magazine, and the Boston Phoenix. She co-hosts a video game podcast called Triple Click, as well as an X-Men podcast called The Mutant Ages. When she is not writing or podcasting, she composes electro-pop music under the handle MIDI Myers. Her personal website is midimyers.com.