PS5 Midnight Black Collection: classy noir aesthetic

It’s a story that’s coming – terribly rather than fashionably – late to the party, as these products are already out for some time. There’s a reason for that delay, though: not only did it take yours truly some time to track down all five items of Sony’s PS5 Midnight Black Collection of accessories, but it also proved harder than anticipated to get a set of high-quality console covers for the PS5 Pro that precisely match the tone and vibe of said accessories.

It took a couple of misses to get this right, but the results are so worth it that they are definitely worth sharing – along with your truly’s impressions of the PS5 Midnight Black Collection itself.

It’s fair to say that Sony’s choice regarding the PS5 design, its lines and colors, is not to everyone’s taste – even if it succeeded in making it distinctly different to any other gaming console out there in 2020. More to the point, both the PlayStation5 and the PS5 Pro are not black, which is a definite departure for this line of products since, well, the PS2 days of the early 2000s. Aesthetically speaking, putting an Xbox Series X next to a TV or making it part of a media is often easier for a lot of consumers simply because Microsoft’s system tends to blend in, while doing the same with a PS5 draws more attention to Sony’s console than many seem to like.

Luckily, it turns out that Sony had already put some thought into this, as the PS5’s swappable covers are actually an integral part of its design: not only did various third parties offer alternative covers quickly after its launch, but the Japanese company itself did too in due course.

For long-time PlayStation fans, though, black will always be the color more closely associated with a Sony console… and that becomes perfectly clear as soon as one uses the official black covers for the regular PS5. Sony does not offer official black covers for the PS5 Pro as of yet – it is expected to, as the PS5 ones do not fit – so these are the closest ones yours truly could find at the time of publishing this story.

Two other similar alternatives found on Amazon are either not matte or sport cooling vents that do not make the minimalistic look of the PS5 Pro any favors. An accompanying stand like this one may feel cheaper than the official Sony silver one, but it completes the all-black look in a much more effective way.

It’s when any of the five Midnight Black accessories is placed beside a matte black PS5 Pro that one realizes that yes, this may be how a modern PlayStation ecosystem was supposed to look like all along. Not only does Sony’s latest console appear as a more powerful piece of hardware in matte black, more aggressive and mysterious, but the black PS5 accessories themselves look decidedly more edgy and high-tech than the regular ones based on color alone. The difference is, frankly, staggering.

In fact, put together, these products initially look so different that might as well belong to a different PlayStation generation (maybe Sony could keep that in mind when settling on the design of the PS6… just saying).

All five accessories of the PS5 Midnight Black Collection, though, just look better than their regular black/white counterparts whether they are put beside a black PS5 Pro or not. Both the PlayStation Pulse Elite headset and the PlayStation Pulse Explore earbuds set would not seem out of place when used with smartphones or tablets or laptops – which is not something the regular versions can easily pull off.

The Midnight Black PlayStation Portal, especially, could have fooled people into believing that Sony stealthily released a PS Vita 2, of sorts, while the black DualSense controller brings back fond memories of its DualShock predecessors (while being more stylish than the Xbox Series X controller and effortlessly matching way more PC setups than its regular version).

The only PlayStation accessory in Sony’s Midnight Black Collection that looks better than its regular counterpart but also a bit… odd, at first, is the DualSense Edge. See, it’s obviously black too, only – contrary to the regular DualSense Edge – it’s a mixture of matte black (most of its casing), glossy black (the removable part of the casing) and somewhere-between-matte-and-glossy black (the touchpad), all three variations combined on the same device. It still looks great, it still looks premium next to the regular DualSense, but it does take some getting used to when compared with the other all-matte-black members of this product line.

In terms of actual functionality there are obviously no differences between the PS5 Midnight Black Collection accessories and their regular counterparts. Having lived for a few days with an all-black PlayStation5 setup, though, yours truly can’t imagine going back to the default two-tone controller(s) and headset – or the Portal, even – any time soon. For those wondering… yes, that’s despite all the dust that’s naturally showing way, way more readily on these accessories, practically requiring them to be cleaned a few times a week.

Simply put, the black versions of Sony’s latest PlayStation accessories do not impress just because they match other products more easily in different environments or because they are more stylish in general. They actually impress because they are more, well, PlayStation than the standard versions. Yes, the PS5 Midnight Black Collection may not be the type of purchase most gamers would think of as essential, not by any stretch of the imagination. But it’s often the non-essentials that make everyday life that much more enjoyable, no?