Show Me Your Insides

[dracula]

As fashion has continued to mirror our world circa Y2K, I have awaited the return of transparent technology. I have especially found myself drawn to the look of see-through shells in the last year and I’m excited to see some controllers and hardware beginning to wear ghost skin.

I’m starting the thread with the one that started it for me, the Atomic Purple Game Boy Color.

By no means is this meant to be specific to video game hardware, nor limited to images you took yourself. I want this to be a thread where we can collectively build a repository of translucence for the ages.

[skyevlyn]

Wow what a topic! One of my very favourite things ever, clear plastic :D I dug through my photos collection, I have quite a few! I only have sources for a few of them unfortunately but I’ll do my best.

To start off with, the matching Game Boy Camera for your GBC there ^^

Ooh ooh check out this ad for the atomic purple game boy pocket

That reminds me, according to Nintendo Online Magazine https://web.archive.org/web/20230202210025/https://www.nintendo.co.jp/nom/9902/a_box/index.html the clear ones were the best-sellers

Both of the gyro-controlled GBC games have clear plastic shells!

(of course I bought my gamebit screwdriver set to match, who wouldn’t??)

Mario’s Picross has pixel renditions of game boys as border options when played no a Super Game Boy, including the transparent one!! How awesome is that!

Salamander’s Famicom cart my beloved…

https://retrogamerestore.com/store/ Makes the most awesome-looking custom shells

ファミキューブ R : ゴリゴリなおっさんの裏ゲームブログ(GORIO'S BLOG) Made this stunner of a Famicom with FDS

Custom Pokemon Yellow cart

Boom Box Boy, a GBC peripheral that allowed you to listen to the radio through your GBC

The N64 is definitely a king in this arena

I love this sunfaded box too XD

Custom GBA

Those black DS cartridges are actually very dark translucent purple so that way the IR can pass through. You can tell by holding any of them up to the light!

Here’s a prototype 3DS iirc?

The new 3DS got these awesome clear shells (which do not look as good on the dark background of this site oops)


and in Japan they even got matching 3ds themes

Custom Joy-Cons!

Not actually sure what this one is but I like that it says “THIS IS COOL” on it

The dreamcast had lots of transparent plastic goodness!

and if see-through VMUs aren’t good enough for you, be sure to put them in a see-through holder!

I always loved the Playstation Kids Station controller

Those buttons look so smackable!

They made some translucent playstations to celebrate some sales milestones (the PS2 celebration ones were metallic this person just put the dark see through blue one here to be pretty)

Xbox has done some cool stuff too

even recently!

Some miscellaneous photos I have

Dragon Quest slime LCD pet handhelds

Lastly, the most amazing photographer ever Kazzycom has lots of photos of clear plastic! Check them out at x.com and k ⊿ z y カ ジ コ ム (@kazzycom) • Instagram profile or https://kazzycom.themedia.jp/

Thanks for joining me! I hope everyone enjoys ^^ (If nothing else, I want it to be known that I show up for clear plastic)

Now, show me your favourite clear plastic devices!!

[MoH]

first post a damn thread killer! incredible stuff

[skyevlyn]

Oh no! But I want others to share more pictures, I can’t possibly do this all myself. Everyone knows about cool stuff I don’t :D

…Also I went through another folder and found some more because my brain would not leave me alone about it haha

In no particular order this time

Pokemon Crystal has this design on the back in Japan but not NA:

No I don’t know what these even are ^

Wikipedia has this sick picture of the IR DS cart in action Nintendo Game Card - Wikipedia

And finally, not hardware but I love it anyhow

Mmmmm dragon quest slime…

Okay I think I’m good now. Gonna go cook lunch without trying to think of more of these

[dracula]

The screenshot of your open tabs in the other thread was no threat! Thank you for kicking this thing off properly.

Part of me creating this was wanting to start building a wishlist of things to add to my collection but you have reminded me of how many of these I actually own and forgot about!

I’ll add one I hadn’t learned about until this week, and am subsequently heartbroken that there were only 200 made: The King Jim 15th Anniversary Crystal Limited Model Pomera DM250X.

Knowing that I couldn’t track one of these down, I instead opted for a new watch:

I also discovered that The Verge has a running timeline of stories covering transparent tech releasing over the last few years and from it I found the latest 8BitDo SN30 Pro variant in collaboration with a company called Genki.

[skyevlyn]

I’m not sure what I’m looking at, the website says it’s just a word processor but its own little contraption?

Never considered such a thing!

It looks really cool :D

And thanks for the tip about the verge article, I’m so happy to see so many recent examples! I’m sad we ever left the garden of see-through plastic

[Death_Strandicoot]

NeoGeo Pocket Color had some transparent variants

And of course the official Switch pro controller is a dark translucent gray.

[dracula]

Yeah I’ve just learned about this type of single-purpose device this week. From what I gather, they are meant to be like a modern typewriter. People make their own, with some opting for the term “writerdeck” as a play on cyberdeck, and there are a bunch of commercial options as well.

[skyevlyn]

Ooooh, I didn’t know about those! Anyone want some wonderswan glamour shots?

[FishHead]

The retroid pocket comes in multiple see-through variants

[dracula]

I’ve been looking at a GBA replacement shell that’s almost that NGPC crystal blue color. I love that.

I’m also still thrilled that Nintendo went with that translucent gray right from the start. It’s a shame there were never any official Joy Con that went down this road.

@skyevlyn I’ve never seen that pink WonderSwan! That rules.

@FishHead I cannot understate how many times I’ve had one of those Retroid Pockets in the shopping cart this week for this exact reason.

[connrrr]

I reshelled my SP a couple years ago! The colours came together really nicely.

[Tom]

Let’s not forget some Xbox 360 love - the Halo 4 limited edition S!

It’s not easy to photo so here’s a stock picture:

Easily my favourite edition of the machine

[Death_Strandicoot]

I’m tempted to get this Steam Deck custom shell.

[exodus]

Since you asked, the “smoke grey” or “skeleton” Saturn as folks call it, with the “this is cool” logo on it was released as a special edition with - of all games - derby stallion. Here’s an image of the unassuming box from the internet.

The controller was also (not) sold separately as the “cool pad”

[skyevlyn]

I love it! Thank you for explaining ^^ the little horse stickers too, I don’t think many consoles come with stickers!

[Tom]

The This is Cool and Derby Stallion machines are actually different. The Derby Stallion one doesn’t have any the extra text on the front.

It’s the far more valuable of the two - but both are truly beautiful!

[exodus]

Oh shoot, you’re right! I conflated them because of skeleton-ness.

[connrrr]

Oh look! It’s the Iomega Zip 100 USB drive again!!

[Tom]

That’ll do that to a person! They’re actually very slightly different in colour, but hard to see without good pictures of them. The original this is cool is model HS-0021 and the Derby one was HS-0022, which was the final model of the Saturn.