Macaroni generally has an association with cheap Mac & Cheese box meals. I do agree that, on a broader scale, they are both pasta and not really functionally much different.

I was informed that Japanese people often referred to these as “Macaroni Westerns” which I think is even even better as it effectively also implies that they are cheaply made

For the sake of completeness, I will point out that Amazon also owns the “Whole Foods” brand of grocery stores. Not particularly relevant to this article, but Amazon indeed has quite a lot of grocery stores as a result.

My suspicion is that it is potentially a result of thinner shells. You look at something like Game Boy Color or Nintendo 64, and those things have quite thick shells with plenty of empty space inside, mitigating any potential structural loss due to transparency additives (ABS is not naturally transparent). Newer devices have thinner shells to reduce weight and maximize space for components, potentially leading to problems like this when using translucent plastic.

This is something of a reoccurring problem with translucent plastics.