I made my PS5 Fire Orange and Atomic Purple with Dbrand’s transparent Darkplates

theverge.com:

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

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Would you agree technology peaked in the days of candy-colored gadgets in see-through hues like “Atomic Purple” and “Bondi Blue”? If so, Dbrand would greatly enjoy weaponizing your nostalgia against your bank account.

Today, it’s introduced the $100 Retro Darkplates for your PS5, which give your Sony console a similar effect to the transparent N64s that Nintendo released at the turn of the millennium.

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They come in transparent orange, light blue, black, and purple, with the first three a “deadmatch against their N64 counterparts,” says Dbrand CEO Adam Ijaz — because the company bought those original consoles, Pantone-matched them, and then spent two months tweaking, he says. The final plates are made of translucent ABS plastic and still have the same Easter egg inside: binary that translates to an excerpt of Sony’s cease and desist.

What about the PS5’s glossy black center bar, you ask? You’ll apply a flat X-ray image in the form of a skin: “We shot side-profile X-rays of the PS5 in about a dozen subsections, then meticulously stitched the parts together to ensure an accurate representation of the PS5’s internals from any angle,” says Ijaz. You also get strips of vinyl to turn the PS5’s white running lights purple, orange, or ice blue to match.

It’s no secret I love a good transparent gadget, so I asked Dbrand to let me borrow a full set of all four colors — and the swap is pretty easy, even for a skin-hater like me. In case you’re not aware,