Archive of ‘consoles’ category

08
May
2022

Thinking about getting the kid a Steam Deck.

categories: consoles, personal; word count: 223 words

I have some credit through a line on PayPal, and for some reason using less than 10% of it and paying that off in full when my statements hit caused my credit score to lower a bit from what it had been… so I’m like, hey, if “they” (the arbiters of credit scores since this appears to be a uniquely American thing) want me to prove that I can handle a little bit of self-made debt by paying something like this off every month until it is paid off, there is that as an alternative. So I am considering that. Bub has already made it clear that he would love to have a Steam Deck, and they have a microSD card slot that I could easily add more space to by popping a 1TB card in. I could also pay it off with the child support that his father’s family has voluntarily paid since 2019. The order has, barring some brief periods where the “chief ombudsman” of the child support office has forced it to remain open in spite of there being approved good cause waivers on it (and her name’s Stephanie Neely, by the way), been in non-enforcement since it was declared unsafe to enforce.

Anyway, this thing is about as difficult to find and purchase as a PlayStation 5, so wish me luck, y’all!

07
May
2021

In a move that surprises almost no one…

categories: consoles; word count: 161 words

Sony has gone back on closing the PlayStation Store for the PS3 and Vita.

On one hand, this surprises me — they went back on this. On the other hand, it doesn’t, because it would have been a poor business move for them to block people out of the PlayStation Store who were still playing those consoles. It was just a matter of seeing how thoroughly Sony wanted to shoot themselves in the foot alienating themselves from their older player base, because both of those consoles are still being played (or else there wouldn’t have been the uprising that there was over them stating that they would close the PlayStation Store for them). They’re still going to close the PlayStation Store to the PSP console, but hey. A lot of people can play PSP games on the Vita, so that isn’t and won’t be a complete loss. I can deal with that.

Clearly, no one comes between a Bub and his game.

27
Apr
2021

This still makes me mad, and it’s been days.

categories: consoles; word count: 241 words

https://www.theverge.com/2021/3/29/22356791/sony-playstation-store-close-ps3-vita-psp-game-downloads

This made me mad when I read about it the first time, and this makes me mad now.

Some people still have PSPs, PlayStation 3s, and Vitas. A lot of people still play games on any combination of those devices. But because Sony wants to “allocate more resources” to the PlayStation 4 and the PlayStation 5, these older consoles are getting caught in the crossfire. What makes matters worse is that if your PlayStation 3’s internal battery depletes and you have no way to connect to the PlayStation Store that will soon become defunct on it, your PlayStation has no way to figure out what time it is, and this will render all of your digital games on it unable to be played. You know, games that you bought. I’m not sure what it will do with physical copies of games, but my hunch is that they’re going to be treated the same as digital games will be if the PlayStation 3 can’t connect to anything that will tell it what time it really is. This sucks.

I suppose my advice would be to make sure you’ve downloaded all of your games on any of these consoles that you still own, especially if you still play them. It might not hurt to put a new internal battery in your PlayStation 3, either… it will delay the inevitable by some time and let you keep playing all of your games.

10
Apr
2021

Spending the third stimulus check: round one.

categories: consoles, personal; word count: 253 words

Since I actually got this third stimulus check, and the proper amount of it all at once (me and two dependents), I spent some of it on a PlayStation 5 for Bub. I got it from a scalper for not too much over retail price, which was great. I also made sure to get one that had a disc drive because of the backwards compatibility that it boasts, and I began to download the digital versions of games that Bub had on the PlayStation 4 over to it. Needless to say, because of our Internet connection and the amount of games that he boasts over on the PlayStation 4, that took awhile… longer than I’d originally anticipated, but it got done.

I also got my glasses from Zenni Optical, and it only took me a day to get used to the new prescription.

Sadly, I could not get my old glasses in the new prescription from Zenni because they retired that frame (what?! how dare they), but I got a frame that was close enough to them that they will do. I was able to get the sunglasses (dark amber) in the same frame that I’ve been using for them, although they came in the mail two days after my regular glasses did… not quite sure how that happened, but hey, they got here and that’s what matters. I’m still a big fan of Zenni and will continue getting my glasses from them. They work for me.

But seriously, how dare they do this to me:

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