In a rather fun piece of merchandising, Bandai has announced a new PlayStation logo stand that even plays the iconic console’s startup sound.
What with the original PlayStation released back in 1994 in Japan and in 1995 across the rest of the world, the mighty console that usurped both Sega and Nintendo is now three decades old.
If this news hits you as though you drank from the wrong Holy Grail in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I’m entirely there with you.
The fact that the first PlayStation is now this old does feel quite shocking, but one of the things that always reassured me in times of need was most certainly the console’s soothing boot-up sound.
For me, I bought the original PlayStation to play the first Armored Core and destroy my friends on Bushido Blade. Over the years, I racked up a big library of games, like everybody else really.
From Omega Boost to wip3out and all manner of other games, the end of my teenage years and into adulthood was one filled with an awful lot of PlayStation-related gaming.
The iconic logo of the PlayStation then evokes a great many happy memories, that still seem a lot closer than they now clearly are.
In that sense, Bandai has definitely nailed it with this new physical rendition of the classic PlayStation logo and it has hit me hard in the feels.
The logo itself is detachable and has two bases. The first is just a regular stand, but the second one comes with the aforementioned startup sound.
The catch here, at least currently, is that this PlayStation logo set is only available via Premium Bandai in Japan.
Priced at a very reasonable 3,300 yen (or around $22 at the current exchange rate) with pre-orders already open, it’s planned to ship this July.
In any case, I’ll be picking one of these up, even if it does age me like Matt Damon at the end of Saving Private Ryan.
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