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If you’re wondering what this is about: The PS4 used to require its internal clock to be correct to play any game, even disc based ones, and the only way to do so is to connect to PSN, meaning that in a distant future when the PSN goes down (or Sony no longer allows PS4s to connect to it) all your games would become useless. And the worst part? They did all of this because of trophies.
Sony has fixed the issue on Update 9.0, but the fact that it was ever an issue and caused by a totally non-essential feature is baffling.
Oh? They fixed the cbomb?
Remember when printers wouldn’t even warn you that the ink was out? They would just give you a weird magenta ghost of what you were trying to print.
I read printers use that ink to print nigh invisible text of the printer serial id for anti forgery, and tracking purposes
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Excuse me what’s the ominous “71 days” on the Sonic Adventure game cover am I cursed now
the artist, keith stack, uses to do daily comics leading up to major releases, hiding a countdown in each comic
Okay, now I know why my Dreamcast keeps asking for the time and date every time I turn it on. Always wondered, but never checked because it worked regardless.
To be fair, there are tio many arcade boards from that exact era that have draconian DRM measures where if the CMOS dies, the decryption key is irreversibly lost, and it becomes ewaste
Exactly. It’s not as if companies were being intentionally pro-consumer then any more than they are now, they just seemed that way as they hadn’t figured out how to tighten the screws as much, and especially how to do it cost-effectively in the consumer segment.
Nothing bad even happened to a Dreamcast… Right ?
Then there’s the og Xbox and it’s clock capacitor. Nothing like grabbing your console out of storage to find out it blew a cap and dissolved some of the traces on the PCB.
Man, I remember when I used to play the Dreamcast and awesome games like Power Stone 2 and Super Magnetic Neo! The little cartridge inside the controller was awesome too.
The CMOS battery of my PSP 3000 died years ago :(
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SomethingAwful has entered the chat
Setting the clock on each boot, after the rechargable CMOS battery died, sucks. I speak from experience with Dreamcast consoles. Best you solder in a battery holder and put in a new rechargable coin cell. … or add a diode and put in an ordinary non-rechargable.
this is how a buddy and I cheesed playing through seaman in a single afternoon, just kept bumping the clock forward
If you’re wondering what this is about: The PS4 used to require its internal clock to be correct to play any game, even disc based ones, and the only way to do so is to connect to PSN, meaning that in a distant future when the PSN goes down (or Sony no longer allows PS4s to connect to it) all your games would become useless. And the worst part? They did all of this because of trophies.
Sony has fixed the issue on Update 9.0, but the fact that it was ever an issue and caused by a totally non-essential feature is baffling.
That’s strange, I have a friend with no internet and he used his ps4 for half a decade before ever connecting it to the network.
My guess would be that it shipped from the factory with a “correct enough” time for the system to not care.
Had it shipped with a dead CMOS battery, the date would have been reset to 1970 or something, then it would complain.
Is anyone else’s Dreamcast yellow now?
I bought it in the year it was released and it was used quite a bit (euphemism) back then. But I dug it from the closet it was stored in and now is yellow. Remote control and all. All the consoles stored along with it still look the same. All the older ones looking the same as they always were, but Dreamcast decided to have that “we’re fucking old” moment with me. Haven’t tried turned it on out of fear of mortality being the next reminder it has in store for me.
I bought it 20 years ago it was already yellow lol
Just as a quite warning- retrobright will make the plastic of the dreamcast white, but it will also make it more brittle, and it’s not a permanent solution. It WILL yellow again, and repeated applications of retrobright will make it more and more brittle.
Oh, thank you for the heads up. I got excited at the prospect of restoring it. I like to restore stuff when I can. Usually is more wood related items. Sad to hear this, but thank you for informing me though.
Maybe I’ll just have it like it is. I’ll call it a “sepia vintage” look as a cool spin to pretend I’m not jealous that others got better and more durable plastic for the same price as me.
Cheers and thanks again.
My Dreamcast is pretty normal, but good God my NES.
Mine’s still white, but I’d always heard there were different types of plastic used in consoles (and computer cases) back then, some of which would become discolored, and others wouldn’t. Might be true, unless anyone in your house has been a smoker in the last 25 years.
Okay, now I know why my Dreamcast keeps asking for the time and date every time I turn it on. Always wondered, but never checked because it worked regardless.
