Console branding - opinions?

[Umbra]

So what I'm wondering here is this: I'm sure that, among those on the forum who do more of the graphic design side of things, there are some who have their opinions on how certain consoles have done their branding (logos, official templates, etc). If you have any opinions on how consoles have handled their aesthetic, what are they? Or, if you could change the template/branding of a console, what would you do?

The idea for this topic came to me while I was reading people on neogaf ranting about the Xbox 360 rebrand from 2010. They seemed to think that the new design was less professional and detracted from the box art as a whole by being too bold.

[ZX the Hedgehog]

Personally, logo on the front, logo on the spine. Anything more than that is excessive.

[Blumpkin]

I'm not overly picky, I just hate when they change it during the life of the console. PS3 went through three designs and it drives me crazy.

[Umbra]

My personal pet peeve was how the Xbox 360 underwent that drastic rebranding in mid-2010 and went from the solid white bar to the super-artsy wave thing. It's okay but I personally liked the simplicity of the old style better. So I agree with the "don't change it halfway through" thing.

PS3 went through three designs and it drives me crazy.

Yeah aren't they blue now?

[sheep2001]

I don't care what they do on the back and front, just don't change the spine midway through.  Although saying that, being from the EU, I hat the EU ps1 and ps2 spines.  Really boring, prefer the NTSC spines.

Conversely, I don't like the NTSCU GameCube spines, as the location of the system logo is on the bottom rather than the top.  My favourite gamecube cases are the NTSCJ small boxes, small logo.  Dinky, and nice.

[CMDLineKing]

I used to care more that they changed the spine logos, but really it's not that bad.  PS3 -> PS3 (new font) -> PS3 (Blue background) - While pesky, they didn't change the LAYOUT of the spines, which would have been FAR worse..

GREATEST HITS / PLAYERS CHOICE / ETC..  is my biggest pet peeve. Please stop this, or let me flip the cover to the original or SOMETHING.  It's like they are saying "Wow! Everyone LOVED this awesome game! It deserves to STAND OUT FROM THE REST OF YOUR COLLECTION... "

[TDIRunner]

I used to care more that they changed the spine logos, but really it's not that bad.  PS3 -> PS3 (new font) -> PS3 (Blue background) - While pesky, they didn't change the LAYOUT of the spines, which would have been FAR worse..

GREATEST HITS / PLAYERS CHOICE / ETC..  is my biggest pet peeve. Please stop this, or let me flip the cover to the original or SOMETHING.  It's like they are saying "Wow! Everyone LOVED this awesome game! It deserves to STAND OUT FROM THE REST OF YOUR COLLECTION... "

I always thought of it as more of a punishment for not buying the game when it first came out. 

[FritzWhite]

The worst are the platinum hits combo packs. I'm a sucker for compilation games, but there are a few that came out for 360 with the platinum hits label. I still prefer to have the compilation games so my collection is tainted.

In spite of this, I just bought a regular copy of Left  for Dead 2 at Gamestop and returned my platinum hits version. Ocd gets fired up over it

[Umbra]

I'm not as picky with Platinum Hits / Greatest Hits games. If I want my collection to look really uniform, I usually just print out a regular retail cover.

That being said, I'll hunt down the black-label / white-label before I get Hits versions.

[TDIRunner]

I'm not as picky with Platinum Hits / Greatest Hits games. If I want my collection to look really uniform, I usually just print out a regular retail cover.

That being said, I'll hunt down the black-label / white-label before I get Hits versions.

I've gotten to the point in my collection where I've separated my GH games from my black labels.  The GH games don't look that bad when they are all together, and the black label games look great that way as well.  I need to get some pictures up.

[Umbra]

I've tried separating them as well. It messes my series up though when I have one of three Kingdom Hearts games that's not greatest hits and one of three Prince of Persia games that *is* greatest hits. I'd have gotten the black-label version of Sands of Time if the greatest hits version didn't actually have better box art

Besides, printing the cover art gives me some artistic liberty

[Nacho3]

I was thinking the same thing Umbra, I don't want these Zelda and Mario games to be lonely down at the end with the GH games

Same thing with one of my NBA Street games and a Viewtiful Joe, you get the picture

[Jeff]

I don't mind recolored covers, but I hate how obtrusive the wii nintendo selects covers are.

[Umbra]

I couldn't stand those covers. They might have been fine as a slipcase or something, but to be the actual artwork... nah. Nothing could be worse than the Xbox 360 Platinum Hits pre-2008 though. Those were pretty ugly.