Hallmark has added Sony’s original PlayStation to its Keepsake line of console ornaments, giving holiday trees a tiny gray box that plays the console’s startup audio instead of asking anyone to blow dust off a disc.
The ornament costs $28.99, according to The Verge’s Cameron Faulkner, who tested the replica. It is also listed at $29 through Amazon and Hallmark. The model uses three 1.5-volt coin batteries, which Faulkner said are included in the package.
The miniature is based on the early PlayStation design before Sony introduced the DualShock controller. That means the included controller is the original pad style, and on this ornament it is fixed to the top of the console. Faulkner reported that the controller is glued to the disc lid, with part of its flexible cable attached along the side.
Pressing the power button turns on a green LED and triggers the PlayStation boot sound in full, according to Faulkner. That detail is more precise than it may seem. The original console’s startup sequence had two parts: the first played while “Sony Computer Entertainment” appeared on a white screen, and the second arrived only after the machine successfully read a disc and showed the PlayStation logo.
For anyone who owned a temperamental PlayStation, that second sound was the machine’s little permission slip. Faulkner wrote that his childhood console had a failing disc spindle, forcing a glue-and-hope repair job before online repair guides were easy to find. The ornament, unlike the hardware it mimics, does not need to identify a disc before playing the whole chime.
Small replica, specific hardware cues
Faulkner’s hands-on report says Hallmark carried over several recognizable details from the console shell, including the ridged sides, the power connector, and the A/V port design Sony continued using through the PlayStation 3. That is the sort of nerd taxonomy that separates a decent nostalgia object from a gray lump with a logo.
The sample was not flawless. Faulkner noted minor finish issues and said the “Power” label on his unit was slightly crooked. He also said those flaws were hard to spot from a few feet away, which is the distance from which most people will see a tree ornament unless they are auditing your decorations like a procurement file.
Hallmark has been making game-console Keepsake replicas, including an Xbox 360 ornament released last year, according to The Verge. The PlayStation entry follows the same broad formula: a small, powered display object aimed less at practical use than at people whose brains still autocomplete the opening seconds of a 1990s boot screen.
Whether $28.99 feels reasonable depends mostly on how much that startup sound is worth to the buyer. The confirmed feature set is narrow: a PlayStation-shaped ornament, light, sound, included batteries, and a permanently attached controller. For the right kind of former disc-spindle survivor, that may be enough.
This story draws on original reporting from The Verge.
