Octopus Overlords

Ralph-Wiggum wrote:I'm having an unexpected problem with my PS5. It generates so much heat that my cats like to lay behind it when it's on. In and of itself this isn't a big issue, but since he's lying there anyways I guess he figures he might as well chew on the PS5 cords. I've repeatedly had to chase him out from there when he starts gnawing on them. I need to figure out a way to either make the cords inaccessible or unpalatable before my cat borks my PS5.

My cat keeps on doing that with my daughters laptop. It's super frustrating. Maybe put some stuff around it that makes it uncomfortable to sit? We have to just lock the cat out of the damn room.

Octavious wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:55 pm Maybe put some stuff around it that makes it uncomfortable to sit?

That's not a bad idea. Or maybe something that makes a lot of noise when they walk on it (aluminum foil, maybe?). I was thinking of coating the cords with vinegar or something, but I don't necessarily want that smelling up my living room.

Look up "Grannicks Bitter Apple" on Amazon or wherever. It's designed for exactly the kind of cord-chewing problem you're having. I haven't used it in a while, but I don't remember it smelling strongly to the room in general.

Oh, and double sided tape can work well if you want to keep them away from the area in general (if foil doesn't work). Just put in the area they keep sitting and they should learn they no longer like walking around there.

Ralph-Wiggum wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:53 pm I'm having an unexpected problem with my PS5. It generates so much heat that my cats like to lay behind it when it's on. In and of itself this isn't a big issue, but since he's lying there anyways I guess he figures he might as well chew on the PS5 cords. I've repeatedly had to chase him out from there when he starts gnawing on them. I need to figure out a way to either make the cords inaccessible or unpalatable before my cat borks my PS5.

Some thin plastic conduit for the exposed area of the cords? Run them through PVC pipe?

Octavious wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:55 pm Maybe put some stuff around it that makes it uncomfortable to sit?

Anti-homeless architecture for cats.

gbasden wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 9:41 pm

Octavious wrote: Wed Feb 17, 2021 2:55 pm Maybe put some stuff around it that makes it uncomfortable to sit?

Anti-homeless architecture for cats.

Holy crap I'm turning into a Republican!

I love my PS5, but my Series X is way more impressive from a performance standpoint. Not to mention my PS5 unfortunately has a terrible case of coil whine and frequent internet disconnection.

Mine only makes noise when spinning the disc drive, otherwise it's super quiet. And I haven't had any internet disconnections, but I do have it connected via ethernet.

Update on Loki, my cat destroyer of cords: I put down a sheet of aluminum foil where he likes to lie and chew on cords and he was terrified of it. H refused to get too close and was super jumpy. I don't know if that fear will last, but at least it kept him away from the cords for one night....

Now cut taxes and eliminate food stamps. Your journey to the dark side will be complete!

Octavious wrote: Thu Feb 18, 2021 1:26 pm Now cut taxes and eliminate food stamps. Your journey to the dark side will be complete!

My cats already pay no taxes, so I'm pretty good there. They do rely on me for their food and shelter, though. Damn freeloaders.

PlayStation Direct queue is up again if anyone is still trying.

They were out of stock before the queue even ended for me.

Alefroth wrote: Mon Feb 22, 2021 7:18 pm They were out of stock before the queue even ended for me.

This is why I'm not bothering until I don't have to fight price gougers to get one. Oh and maybe when there are a few more games.

There really isn't much out yet. The one thing though is that my ps4 is so loud that I don't want to use it anymore. It's like a jet engine.

I wouldn’t have any issue if it were simply high demand.

The fact that so many (most?) of the people buying these are simply price gougers pisses me off though.

I did finally get my PS5 from Playstation Direct. It shipped out on Friday the 12th. It made it to Houston on Saturday night but was marked for next business day delivery. Sunday night was the Texas Icepocalypse. Everything was shut down. We didn't have power and water for a while, so PS5 wasn't high on the list. It started to thaw by Thursday. They were going to make a delivery attempt then, but ultimately called a weather delay. I would guess they wanted to get all the trucks back before the roads iced up again in the evening. Anyway, it was finally delivered on Friday the 19th.

I could have filmed the unboxing, but I never understood that. All you get is the PS5, a controller, a power cable, a USB cable and an HDMI cable. The PS5 is bigger than you think if you haven't seen one in person. I ended putting up on top of the entertainment center in the horizontal configuration. I could have squeezed it into one of the shelves, but it was clearly designed to move a lot of air. Setup was pretty painless. It did a system update. It transferred users and saved games from the PS4. It also gave me the option to copy over any PS4 games I wanted.

I haven't had a ton of time to play. Not because I didn't want to. Between Bugsnax and Astro's Playroom, the kids have dominated the system. The Playstation Plus Collection in addition to the PS Plus monthly games gives you a pretty good library starting out. The PS5 upgrade for AC: Valhalla was simple. Put in the disk and click on the PS5 upgrade button.

The only problem I've had was I forgot the hidden menu command for my receiver to put it in HDMI enhanced mode. Once I did that, everything looked great in 4K HDR. Astro's Playroom is amazing making you feel all the textures wherever Astro walked. Mud, ice and sand stand out.

I do find that it's easier to play games when you can get into the action that much faster. In short, satisfied customer. I'll report back once I've had some serious play time.

Sony has announced (in a shocking reveal) that they're working on a new generation of VR for the PS5.

My son has Platinumed Bugsnax, so I have more time to play. I haven't played anything the felt next gen yet, but I've mostly been playing around with the Playstation collection. God of War looks great. Bugsnax is cute, but nothing about it says next gen. I've been playing Days Gone. It looks pretty good. It's one of the main games in the collection that I didn't play before. Astro's Playroom is a great showcase, but it's not that long. I do wonder if devs will reach the bar set by it for tactile immersion. I'm trying to decide if I want to play AC: Valhalla or Watch Dogs: Legion next.

Just as an FYI: some of these games have specific PS5 upgrades that need to be downloaded separately. For Nioh 2, I had to search for Nioh 2 Remastered in the Playstation Store to find the free upgrade; it wasn't automatically downloaded using the normal "check for updates" selection. I know God of War has a PS5 upgrade, so make sure you've actually downloaded that; from what I hear it makes the game look even better.

One would hope.

I was reading an article yesterday about the whole social media support structure that has sprung up to help scalpers (?, probably the wrong term) buy PS5's the second they're available online and flip them for a $500+ markup. It was fascinating (and somewhat infuriating) to see the lengths these folks will go to.

At this point, I've just resigned myself to the fact that it will be at least another year - probably more - before I'll be able to get my hands on one.

Skinypupy wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 6:05 pm I was reading an article yesterday about the whole social media support structure that has sprung up to help scalpers (?, probably the wrong term) buy PS5's the second they're available online and flip them for a $500+ markup.

The correct term is assholes, but scalpers is a suitable synonym.

It is possible, but requires luck and persistence. Also, at this stage, there is hardly a reason to get one anyway which makes you wonder about the insane difficulty involved in getting one.

Obviously, I think PS Direct is the easiest way to get one. They usually open the queue near the hour on weekdays. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday seemed the most common days. I usually saw it between 11-4 Pacific Time.

Here are the links I checked:

PS Direct
Best Buy
Costco
Target
Gamestop
Newegg Shuffle

Newegg Shuffle doesn't always have PS5 bundles. Sometimes it's processors or video cards or Xboxes. It's all explained at the link. You tell them which products from that day's shuffle you're interested in. They email you whether you won a chance to buy or not. Like the PS Direct queue, it feels like you have a better shot than going head to head with the scalpers. I never 'won' though. YMMV.

Keep an eye on Wario64 on twitter as well. He's pretty reliable at announcing when a place is going to have some for sale.

wonderpug wrote: Tue Mar 02, 2021 8:44 pm Keep an eye on Wario64 on twitter as well. He's pretty reliable at announcing when a place is going to have some for sale.

The problem with Wario64 is he is a spammer. He posts way too much to keep notifications on (in my opinion -- but I am not an experienced twitter user) and that makes him a lot less useful. I used a different one that ONLY posted stock alerts.

PS5StockUpdates is the one I've been following on Twitter. I agree about Wario, way too busy.

Also using the OctoShop extension (how could I not?) for Chrome and it's alerted me a couple of times before Twitter has.

Alefroth wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 2:53 pm PS5StockUpdates is the one I've been following on Twitter. I agree about Wario, way too busy.

PS5StockUpdates is who I followed too and it was helpful. I got mine after an alert from him.

I think that twitter one was the one I used too - but in case it isn't obvious make sure you turn on notifications on for it AND activate them on your phone, and that you are actually paying attention to them. I missed a number of chances because I generally ignore things popping up, and usually turn notifications off, so that's all my fault. The first time I saw the "live" notification and responded was the time I was successful - this was from Gamestop.

Woot has DualSense controllers on sale for $60 ($10 off).

Target had a restock this morning. It seems like restocks are becoming more frequent.

For those of you on the hunt, Amazon is apparently going to be putting 46,000 PS5s up for sale sometime tomorrow. They haven't mentioned a time yet.

wonderpug wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:28 am For those of you on the hunt, Amazon is apparently going to be putting 46,000 PS5s up for sale sometime tomorrow. They haven't mentioned a time yet.

Reports I've found online says this is now happening tomorrow (March 18), sometime between 9 and 11 AM EDT.

pr0ner wrote: Wed Mar 17, 2021 10:59 am

wonderpug wrote: Tue Mar 16, 2021 11:28 am For those of you on the hunt, Amazon is apparently going to be putting 46,000 PS5s up for sale sometime tomorrow. They haven't mentioned a time yet.

Reports I've found online says this is now happening tomorrow (March 18), sometime between 9 and 11 AM EDT.

So this has turned out to be a bust, apparently.

I was having a slow work morning and decided to see if I could snag one with this big restock. Had the Amazon pages for both versions up (digital & disc...I'm not picky on which I get), and have been refreshing each page every 30-60 seconds for the past 90 minutes. Either all 46,000 sold out in the 30 seconds it took me to refresh, or the restock never happened. People are apparently now tweeting threats to the "insiders" who were confirming this restock as "guaranteed".

The whole thing feels rather insane and gross, tbh. I'll just wait until I can get one off a shelf, I think.

Skinypupy wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 11:05 am The whole thing feels rather insane and gross, tbh. I'll just wait until I can get one off a shelf, I think.

Newegg shuffle and playstation direct are probably your best bets if you don't want to fight the bots. Both basically boil down to a raffle for stock and newegg will probably push a bundle on you, but it is better than the constant disappointment through the stores that make no effort to limit bot buys (I say that despite getting mine from Gamestop scoring a victory over the bots!).

Walmart.com had a drop this afternoon, which I was actually online for, but it seems to be immediately out of stock, as I can' t add one to my cart.

Got one from one of the Walmart drops (they do like 4-5 drops over an hour or so). Followed this guy on Twitter and he posts when drops are coming up. Also learned the app trick from him which helped alot of people.
https://twitter.com/ChitoGaminYT

The trick to Walmart is to use the mobile app to add it to cart immediately on the drop time listed. Just spam the "add to cart" button on the app. Once it is added to your cart, have your empty Walmart cart page already open on your PC browser with your credit card info already loaded. Refresh the cart so the item pops in and check out as fast as you can. There are like 2-3 captchas and you have to add your card CV. I wasn't able to complete checkout the first go, but got it the second.

That seems overly complicated!

It's really not. I wrote more than needed just so it was clear, but it's just using the app and checking out on the browser when its in stock.

It's doesn't seem complicated so much as it seems like a hassle. Even if I had the money, I think I'd just buy a different toy for now and plan on a PS5 for the summer or fall.

Blackhawk wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 7:03 pm It's doesn't seem complicated so much as it seems like a hassle. Even if I had the money, I think I'd just buy a different toy for now and plan on a PS5 for the summer or fall.

This is where I am at. Several times I have had it in my cart at Best Buy for it only be impossible to check out. It probably isn't really worth the effort at this point considering the lack of games anyway.

I'm not convinced it will be easy to find for the entire year. Things are so broken right now with anything remotely fun. The stimulus checks aren't helping.

Had a scare yesterday when I thought my PS5 was bricked. Tried turning it on and the TV screen would flash black briefly with the HDR label and then the PS5 would turn off and the whole process would repeat ad nauseum. I was able to boot the PS5 up in safe mode, but trying to repair the system didn't fix anything. After about 30 minutes of trying various things, I reset my TV (TCL Roku tv) and switched HDMI ports and now it seems to work. There was clearly some weird communication issue going on between the PS5 and the TV through that one HDMI port. I suspect I could have also fixed it without changing ports by editing the video output to 1080P. Hopefully I need to test that fix anytime soon...