McDonald's plans to host a "Stream Week" in order to celebrate its 50th anniversary and has gathered seven of Australia's most popular streamers to help with the festivities, one for each day of the week. Everyone who tunes into these streams at their respective times has a chance to win various prizes. The celebrations were supposed to start this past Sunday on August 1, but one of the prizes featured ended up delaying the event for an undisclosed amount of time.
The prize in question was a McDonald's-themed PlayStation 5 controller. The look of the PlayStation 5's DualSense controller has inspired several custom designs since its announcement last year. The simplicity of the controller's black and white setup makes it incredibly easy for creatives to theme it after their favorite properties. A mock-up design for a McDonald's-themed controller was shared with the media as being a part of the Stream Week prize pool, but it's come to light that this was an accident.
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McDonald's never planned to release the controller alongside its other prizes. It actually never meant for the public to see the controller at all, as it was an internal concept that never left the planning stages. If McDonald's knows how the image got out to the public, it didn't say, but as it was never meant to be a part of the prize pool, McDonald's has postponed Stream Week until further notice. However, when it does return, every other prize advertised, such as McDonald's hoodies and channel subscriptions for each streamer, will still be on the table.
Even if McDonald's did plan to use the controller in its festivities, Sony would have more than likely stopped them from doing so. The company has always been very protective of the PlayStation 5 and its accessories. Again, the design of the PlayStation 5 controller, and even that of the PS5 itself, has inspired many redesigns due to its simplicity. When some third-party companies attempted to sell colored PlayStation 5 faceplates, Sony stepped in and shut them down for it. It's hard to imagine the PlayStation manufacturer treating McDonald's any differently.
Sony probably wants to capitalize on its own design before allowing others but is having trouble doing so due to the shortage of materials necessary to create PS5s. Since the console came out last year, Sony has only released two new PS5 controller colors and one new color for the console itself. When the company actually manages to regularly create PlayStation 5s, it may start releasing new colors more frequently and working with others to create more specific designs like the McDonald's controller.
The PlayStation 5 is available now.
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Source: IGN