Top 7 Redesigns

1. Japanese Super Famicom to USA SNES

The Japanese original [left] and the butt-ugly brick US version [right]

The great white and purple whale of redesigns. From curved simplicity to a grey brick. The reason for the complete change of casing, and the alteration from the four-coloured logo (mapped to the system's controller) to a two-tone grey and lavender when the SNES travelled from East to West on the release schedule has been lost in time. The UK received a build closely modelled on the Japanese original when the SNES hit over here - yet there are still fans out there of the oddball of the Super Famicom family,

2. Mega Drive and Mega CD

Sleeker, but pity about what was under the hood - the original versions [left], and the new horizontal design [right]

Combined with the original blocky Mega CD meant the sleek matte design of the Mega Drive (or Genesis in the USA) got lost in a cement block of black that couldn't look more like a 90s Hi-Fi if it tried.

Cue redesigned models for both, the Mega Drive loosing the onboard headphone volume control and squeezing down the thimble-sized power switch to run flush on the machine's casing, twined with the reset button of the same shape and size below the rounded cartridge slot. The Mega CD became much sleeker, looking much more like a CD walkman (or at least a Super-Sized one) and was punted to the side of its new companion, offering a cradle for the new square-shaped Mega Drive to sit.

The new look couldn't cover the Mega CD's meagre game offering though, and unlike console shifts to include DVD playback as standard and therefore offing dual use of machines as multimedia devices, that Mega CD could play audio discs as well wasn't a huge selling point.

3. Sega Multi-Mega

A portable CD player that just happens to have Mega Drive and Mega CD functionality? Could have done better.

We couldn't pass on Sega's 90s era without mentioned this curio: a combined Mega Drive and Mega CD that also operated as a portable CD player...which chewed through batteries faster than a cod player through bullets.

4. Mega Drive Controller: Three to Six

The classic Mega Drive controller [left], and its Street Fighter-ready brother [right]

It's not just consoles: changes in the industry by other companies effected the standard we've come to expect from our control inputs as well. But only one has come directly from a single game: Street Fighter II.

Back in the 90s Capcom's fighter dominated the console wars between Sega and Nintendo. The SNES was already custom fit for the game given its six button controller - four up from the NES, and double the amount over the Mega Drive's. When Sega finally secured its own version of the series, it released a new six-button version of its controller - all mapped to the face of the joypad.

It'd form the basis of the Sega Saturn joypad (which you can get into a heated argument about over it being the best the industry's ever designed), and while Sony's PlayStation would up the button number to eight in short time, Street Fighter II will always play an important part in the genesis of the six-buttoned controller.

But as we'll see, it wasn't the only influence on the industry standards.

While the

5. PlayStation to PSOne.

The original PlayStation [left] may look chunky, but the resize and new curves of the PSOne [right] didn't inspire.

A redesign has multiple purposes. Mainly it's to inject new life into a console, renew interest in the machine. As Apple have so eloquently proven, matching technology advancements with quick design turnarounds means a healthy sales model every few years.

But it's also become accepted that a redesign can also signify a console's change in the gaming leagues, of a stature that's shifted from pack-leader to that of elder statesman.

Arguably it was different for Sony's pioneering console, and emphasised the change of status for the original PlayStation. Once the machine to have given its success in pushing gaming into the mainstream, the redesign was suppose to look slimline. It looked more like a Fisher Price toy, and given its coupling with kids games as Sony repositioned the machine as an entry level for younger gamers, The PSOne would be so associated with making a once chiseled coolness slip back into the childishness that many non-gamers had marked the industry with for years.

6. DualShock Controller

Today, the classic controller [left] feels like it'll easily snap in half. The dual-analog stick version [right] has been standard for every hardware launch since.

The revision of the PlayStation controller - a classic by anyone reckoning - was, whatever anyone says, direct response to Nintendo's N64 controller that debuted analog control to the console world but a year previous.

Analog sticks are standard in console controllers today, giving more precise movement over characters in 3D environments.

DualShock was in fact the second incarnation of the dual-analog stick approach (Sony's dual approach then adopted as standard as well - the Dreamcast the last console offering only the solo analog), but the first to include in-built vibration. Both N64 and Dreamcast would offer add-on packs as luxury extras to plug into your controllers - but the extra feedback offered added extra incentive for companies to carry it as standard from then on.

So while Nintendo created the ideas, Sony refined them: doubling up the sticks, and offering rumble as standard.

7. Game Boy

From 1989 to 2005 - the Game Boy brands seen some amazing redesigns.

Before Apple, Nintendo was the chameleon of the industry, repackaging and reselling - to fantastic results - the same brand for a staggering sixteen years and six iterations of the machine.

It wasn't until 1996 - seven years after the original "brick" handheld was replaced and Nintendo showed us it could do cool with the slim shiny Pocket version. 1998's Colour brought back the bulk and ejected the cool factor, but the company soon made strides with the Game Boy Advance in 2001, putting the control inputs on either side of the screen for the first time.

It went through two redesigns: the clam-style SP, which finally saw the handheld gain a front-lit screen (which was protected when the system closed and emulated the look of the classic original when opened). Then came the credit card-sized Micro.

The last, despite its fantastic design basically a shrunken version of the Advance with the chrome finish of the Pocket, underperformed as Nintendo shifted concentration to the dual-screen DS that became its flagship handheld.

However, its worth noting that by this point SNES ports were rife on the handheld - meaning that in just over a decade, a game that took a CRTV, home console, cables, controller and cartridge could be played on a handheld no larger than the palm of your hand.