Street Fighter Archives

Sony released a special, incredibly rare limited edition version of the PlayStation 4 in honor of the console’s 20th anniversary less than a week ago and while some avid gamers are in love with the design that pays homage to the original PlayStation, others are struggling to understand what all the hype is about.

Only 12,300 of the limited edition consoles exist and anyone who didn’t place their order by December 6 will have to make their way online to sites like eBay where the consoles have been sold for roughly $20,000. Yes, four zeroes—no typo there.

But is it really worth it?

The limited edition console has the same sleek design as the PlayStation 4 but comes in gray, the same color that the original console was in.

It also boasts the original PlayStation logo with gray controllers and even a matching camera, an addition that doesn’t come in your typical PlayStation 4 bundle.

The console also features a plate that lets buyers know exactly which console they received out of the 12,300 that are available and has small Xs, squares, triangles and Os engraved all over it.

For those who don’t know, those are symbols on the buttons of the PlayStation controller.

So is the gray PlayStation 4 really worth thousands of extra dollars?

For some gamers, the gray paint job isn’t enough to get excited about.

“As nice as it is, my initial hype dropped very quickly,” said one Engadget reader. “It’s a grey PS4… that’s it. Yes it’s rare and limited and all that, but what can it do than [sic] any other PS4 can’t?”

The reader went on to slam consumers as “total idiots” for dishing out so much extra cash for what some see as nothing more than a change in color.

Others just simply didn’t like the gray color at all and wished the limited edition console would have went a little outside the box with color choices.

For some gamers, however, the emotional attachment to that gray paintjob was well worth the extra money.

There is something about seeing the color of the original PlayStation slapped across the latest generation of the console that melts the hearts of those who are openly and honestly game-obsessed.

The gray color isn’t just about a difference in appearance in this case.

It’s about bringing up the pixelated memories of the early Street Fighter and Final Fantasy games, having a newfound respect for earthworms after playing Worms Armageddon, the nights spent tormented as a child after playing way too many hours of Silent Hill and Resident Evil and the time you nearly broke your television because you just couldn’t get past the second level of PaRappa the Rapper.

For those gamers, the limited edition console isn’t just painted gray, it’s honoring the emotional attachment that some have formed with the PlayStation brand as a whole.

“I love the nostalgia design-wise, our generation and those a bit before us can appreciate that,” said Marlon Tiller, an avid 22-year-old gamer who grew up with not only the latest PlayStation consoles but also the latest consoles from Xbox and Nintendo. “New kids are going to miss out. They’re definitely not gonna get it. For me, when I saw [the 20th anniversary edition console] I could hear the old PlayStation startup screen sound in my head.”

Of course, for those who are not nearly as attached to the console and never attempted to deliver a high kick to the back of their best friend’s head after playing Tekken, white and black PlayStation 4’s will still be sold at their usual price of roughly $400.

Street Fighter

Although most people who grew up playing Street Fighter loved the franchise, it’s hard to overlook the blatant racial overtones of the characters. From Blanka, the savage from Brazil, to Dalsim, the yoga-practicing Indian, to Balrog, the only Black character in the game who’s portrayed as an evil greedy boxer.

Ethnic Cleansing

It’s hard to believe that a game this blatantly racist exists! Developed by Resistance Records, the game lets you play as a Klansman or skinhead in the quest to kill Latinos, Blacks and Jews.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Deus Ex Human Revolution is a cyberpunk-themed, action role-playing video game developed by Eidos Montreal and published by Square Enix. Released in 2011, the game was critically acclaimed, except for one particular character, a Black female depicted as Letitia. As reported by time.com:  “Letitia’s a really bad part of a really good game. When lead character Adam Jensen encounters her in Detroit, she’s picking through the trash. It becomes clear that she’s an informant from Jensen’s police days.

“The purpose of talking to Letitia is to move the player forward and give some hints about Jensen’s backstory. Yet in doing so, you encounter something really ugly. Letitia embodies a strain of racist stereotype that renders black people as less than human, as the worst that society has to offer.”

Scribblenauts

The objective of Scribblenauts, as implied by its catchphrase “Write Anything, Solve Everything,” is to complete puzzles to collect “Starites,” helped by the player’s ability to summon any object (from a database of tens of thousands) by writing its name on the touchscreen.

However, users were able to uncover a particularly unnerving coincidence that when the term “Sambo” was typed, a watermelon appears on the screen and the character of color eats the entire thing and then falls asleep.

Resident Evil 5

The Resident Evil franchise is one of the most popular game franchises of all time, consisting of not just games but a string of movies as well. However, prior to the release of Resident Evil 5, a trailer featured the lead character (who was Caucasian) massacring numerous Black people in an African village, who had been infected with a disease that originated in Africa.

Although the game producers tried to defend their position by saying that other iterations of the game had taken place in other countries, the racial overtones in the trailer were too blatant and did cause serious backlash at the time.

Tag: Street Fighter

Sony’s Incredibly Rare 20th Anniversary PlayStation 4 Separates Game Lovers from the Game-Obsessed