The start of a new year is seen by many as the perfect time to look for new furniture for their home - especially with many post-holiday sales and deals continuing into January. In particular, gamers who may have received or treated themselves to a next-generation console may find themselves on the lookout for a new table, cupboard, TV stand, or other piece for storing it. Furniture warehouse IKEA has positioned itself as the store for gamers to choose by debuting furniture measurement tools inspired by the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles.
Released in 2020 and heralded as the next generation of gaming consoles, the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X have experienced continued high sales throughout 2021 and into 2022. Both consoles were listed among the most popular Christmas gifts of 2021, with many would-be customers remaining disappointed as continuing stock shortages and high, scalper-inflated prices made them, especially the PlayStation 5, even more difficult to obtain than usual during the holiday season. Those who did receive a PlayStation 5 for Christmas generally reacted with shock, amazement, and joy.
When visiting an IKEA warehouse during the post-New Years' rush, a Reddit user going by u/Afraid_Lunch4088 noticed two new additions to the Swedish furniture and home goods seller's product display floor. These were a pair of cardboard boxes shaped roughly like a PlayStation 5 and an Xbox Series X, featuring the dimensions of each console marked on the side in both millimeters and inches. The fake PlayStation 5 - being the larger of the two consoles - includes a humorous message printed on the side that reads "Which IKEA media storage unit will be able to fit my new, meme-ishly oversized, gaming console?" (The console's size and rather unique design have been a meme since shortly after its release in 2020). Despite the joke, it does seem that the sizing and design of the box is accurate, and would indeed be helpful should customers need to know if a table or shelf will fit their PS5.
IKEA made xbox and playstation sized boxes, that you can place and check if it will fit on the furniture you want to buy from gaming
Comments on u/Afraid_Lunch4088's post, which was made in the r/gaming Reddit community, were primarily humorous in nature. Some commenters pointed out that there was no need to measure furniture to fit a PlayStation 5 due to the difficulty of acquiring the console in the first place. Others suggested that these false PS5s might be stolen from IKEA warehouses and sold online by scalpers, much like the real console itself. Still others suggested that they themselves would steal the fake boxes so that they might pretend to have a genuine PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X in their home.
This is not the first time that IKEA has sought to appeal to gamers. Recently, several IKEA locations in China installed Mario Party-themed showrooms as part of a collaboration with Tencent Games. IKEA has also collaborated with other developers to produce gaming chairs and tables themed around titles such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The furniture seller has even dived into the world of gaming itself, releasing a series of short, free VR games designed to teach customers how to read IKEA's instruction manuals and assemble its furniture.
While real PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles remain scarce, the paper versions should be making their way to IKEA locations around the world within the next several weeks.