Violet the new Black as GameCube designer reveals how the cube was born
The shape and colour explained
At a recent press conference at Nintendo of Japan’s HQ, chief of hardware design, Kenichiro Ashida, lets us in on why the GameCube looks the way it does. And you thought the Germans were efficient!
“The only guideline we had to follow in designing the GameCube was to keep the price low,” Ashida-san said. “Nintendo wanted a console that could be produced cheaply, and that would fit perfectly in millions of homes around the world. I had to take into consideration the size of the main components including the 8cm drive. From a designer’s perspective, I also wanted something that would appeal to all ages. We had several concepts at first, but we settled on the idea of a small cube. It was compact, appealing, and very efficient to mass-produce.”
As for colour, it seems that Nintendo has delivered what has been missing from the catwalks of the world for the last few seasons: A new black!
“We wanted to move away from normal colours used for game consoles such as grey and black,” Ashida-san continued. “More hardware manufacturers choose them because they're considered neutral. We studied elements of fashion and learned that blue was very popular in America and Europe, so that became our focus. I wanted something that was attractive to the eye, and we started experimenting with deep blue colours - almost purple. Layers of paint were actually mixed and applied to scale models of the GameCube. We went through dozens of shades of blue during this trial and error process, but we increasingly found ourselves liking violet. In November we plan to release the GameCube in different colors such as orange and black, which will specifically appeal to different age groups. Violet is the base colour, it's our new neutral.”
“The only guideline we had to follow in designing the GameCube was to keep the price low,” Ashida-san said. “Nintendo wanted a console that could be produced cheaply, and that would fit perfectly in millions of homes around the world. I had to take into consideration the size of the main components including the 8cm drive. From a designer’s perspective, I also wanted something that would appeal to all ages. We had several concepts at first, but we settled on the idea of a small cube. It was compact, appealing, and very efficient to mass-produce.”
As for colour, it seems that Nintendo has delivered what has been missing from the catwalks of the world for the last few seasons: A new black!
“We wanted to move away from normal colours used for game consoles such as grey and black,” Ashida-san continued. “More hardware manufacturers choose them because they're considered neutral. We studied elements of fashion and learned that blue was very popular in America and Europe, so that became our focus. I wanted something that was attractive to the eye, and we started experimenting with deep blue colours - almost purple. Layers of paint were actually mixed and applied to scale models of the GameCube. We went through dozens of shades of blue during this trial and error process, but we increasingly found ourselves liking violet. In November we plan to release the GameCube in different colors such as orange and black, which will specifically appeal to different age groups. Violet is the base colour, it's our new neutral.”
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