Custom PS5 faceplate firm will return via crowdfunding

A peripheral company forced to stop selling custom PS5 faceplates has committed to resurrecting the product via crowdfunding.

Last month CustomizeMyPlates.com was forced to change its original name of PlateStation5 and eventually pull its entire range of custom PS5 faceplates, following threat of legal action from Sony.

The UK-based firm shifted its focus to custom console skins and said it would be “wiser” on trademark and patent laws going forward.

However, Customize My Plates is now looking to crowdfunding platform Gofundme to bring back the custom PS5 faceplates.

The firm recently polled followers on Twitter if they’d be interested in a potential crowdfunding model for the faceplates, and on Saturday it confirmed to VGC it had decided to move forward with the scheme. Full details would be announced on its social channels soon, it said.

However, the company did not say if it had resolved its legal issues with PlayStation. On Twitter it suggested it could create a petition “lobbying Sony to authorise us to make the plates” and a spokesperson confirmed to VGC that this would be part of its plans.

One person at a major third-party peripheral company told VGC that crowdfunding could help negate Sony’s threat of legal action, and that they believed it eventually would not be able to stop custom faceplates going on sale.

“My guess is that Sony won’t be able to control this in the long run,” the person said anonymously. “There will be tons of companies making these faceplates and Sony will be powerless to stop them.

“If we look at something like a controller, Sony can reasonably battle unofficial third parties by updating the console firmware and blocking such knock offs, but a faceplate? There’s not much they can do in the long run. Sony can’t stop them making bits of plastic that just happen to fit their system.”

Before Sony’s action, Customize My Plates had been taking orders for the unofficial PS5 shells in a variety of colours for $39.99 / £32 and said it hoped to ship them to customers within two weeks of the console’s launch date.

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The company claimed it was working with manufacturers in the UK and China to create the faceplates, which were claimed to be made from “premium industry standard plastic” based on the PS5’s officially released dimensions.

As revealed in an official PlayStation 5 teardown video last month, PS5’s standard white shell snaps off, theoretically allowing the unofficial replicas to be easily inserted in its place.

Sony has yet to announce any variation from PlayStation 5’s standard white design or even commit to releasing additional console shells in the future.