When you see the new/upcoming generation consoles PS5 and Xbox Series X, one thing that we can say is that the design is rather big. On Twitter, John Linneman compared the PS5 and Xbox Series X together with a Philips CD-i 220. Back in the day, the CD-i 220 was also criticized being bulky. Especially compared to the competition of the CD-i (3DO, Jaguar, PS1, SNES) The CD-i design was pretty big. And just as what happened with several Playstation iterations, Philips released a 'slim' version as well (the 450 in this case) as components will be cheaper and smaller over the years. The fact that most CD-i models were able to be stacked was a clear benefit.
Some interesting conclusions that were posted:
WrestlesGaming: "I think the CD-I wins here. Philips was so forward thinking that even in 2020 you can use it to stack next-gen consoles on top of it. Talk about a future proof gaming machine. "
RetroRGB: "I hate to say this, but the CDi is the clear winner. At least it'll fit alongside other equipment...and you can always use it to prop up your PVM"
HK: "Weirdly that makes it much smaller in my head than it looks in a lot of "next to this console pics" never really considered the cdi as especially huge as it just sat next to hi-fi separate bits & vhs/laser disc players which were all roughly a similar size"
In the end we can conclude that the CD-i design was not that bad!
[Thanks, John Linneman, PC98_Audi, WrestlesGaming, dark1x]