End Times: A Playstation 3 Memorandum

The Playstation 3, oh how many hours I have spent playing various franchise both new and nostalgic, you will be sorely missed.

But this is not just any PS3 that I speak of in this entry. Oh no, what I speak of is one of two initial models that Sony Computer Entertainment America, and by extension Sony itself, had unveiled to the public way back in 2006: the 60GB CECHAxx model.

I’ve chosen this particular model for two different reasons: Backwards Compatibility and larger Internal Memory.

Why I listed Backwards Compatibility, some of you may ask? Well, by that time period I’ve had a large library of Playstation 2 games and it did not seem wise to go with a product that is incompatible with one’s previous library of video games. Otherwise I just might as well been an X-Box player come March of 2007.

As for larger Internal Memory, well nearly all Playstation 3 games of that time period required an installation of the game before it can be played upon the console itself. As if it was a *bleep*-ING PC!!! Oh sure, they claim that it speeds up load times, but I have yet to see a bloody difference!

Anyway, I went with long term planning since Sony more or less abandoned the idea of selling external memory cards and opted for internal memory. I knew that it’ll need every single byte of memory just for the growing library of games alone. Granted, the Playstation Magazine some years later (*sniff* you will be missed…) have laid out a tutorial on how to upgrade the hard drive from a measly 60GB internal memory to 500GB or 0.5TB for those who are inclined to such numbers.

Granted, such an installation would have made the warranty void but when I performed the operation it was LONG since expired. Still, many game data were sacrificed for more memory before such an upgrade. Then again, it was Call of Duty so it wasn’t too bad of a loss.

In fact, I expanded this data library to include MP3s from my iPod, video game trailers and “motion comics” videos.

All was fine in that particular corner of Sony Land and it had served me well in not only game play, but also web browsing, Playstation Home participation, and movie rentals both DVD and Blu-Ray.

That is, until one dark day in early October 2013 while in the middle of downloading the latest update for Dust 514. My CECHAxx model of Playstation 3 that had been so loyal to me had suddenly turned off.

I thought it was just some kind of glitch or something of a similar nature, so I turned it on. However, in the middle of its power up sequence, a yellow light that I had never encountered before flashed and then the Playstation 3 turned itself off, as if it was unable to turn itself on. I tried to vaccuum all the dust that had accumulated all these years from the ducts to see if it was a simple heating issue. That didn’t work. So I looked up information to see what was wrong with it.

And so I discovered, to my absolute horror, that there was a Sony equivalent to the Red Ring of Death: The Yellow Light of Death.

Yes, my early model of Playstation 3 that I had owned since its inception onto the gaming community was gone. Also, note the date to which it had finally given up its last byte of virtual world exploration: It was almost, ALMOST one month before the Playstation 4 was open to the market.

Coincidence? I think NOT!

Conspiracy theory aside, I scrambled over the next few days to locate a solution to my problem. One that didn’t involve forking cold, hard cash towards Sony for a rather steep repair job. During my sojourn, I’ve discovered two viable solutions:

From what I’ve researched, this option holds the risk of actually melting the console. Not a fan of the idea….

This solution is more of an electrical engineer technique. Or long story short, I don’t think I have all the tools necessary for the job.

As you can imagine, I’m not very confident in either one. So I resorted to dealing with the devil and called the Sony Support Center.

As expected, the repair job was quite steep in terms of funds but they offered me an alternative: Switch it out with a different model for about $99 dollars. It was then I figured that it’ll be the more economical solution as I’ll be able to have a backup plan in case the electronic soldering solution didn’t go as planned. Heck, the delivery was even free, as far as I can recollect.

Unfortunately there was a slight hick-up. Mainly that they didn’t send the PS3 Super Slim until I sent out my broken CECHAxx to them.

I don’t need to be reminded of that fact. I was naïve.

However, I’ve also found out after numerous attempts to connect my 500GB Hard Drive from one PS3 to another that there was a slight issue with data transfer. Mainly it needs two fully functioning PS3s for it to work seamlessly.

I’m sure by now that a few of you would be wondering “But didn’t you transfer your data from the 60GB hard drive to the 500GB one?” And indeed, it is an excellent question. You see, during my stay at Expressions College, I was advise to purchase an external hard drive at around the 60GB range to store my projects and works in case something happened to the computers there. It was this very external hard drive that I used to transfer my data.

However, the data transfer of the Playstation 3 at that time was notably different. Mainly that it copied all of the data at once upon a medium that could store it. What this means is that I couldn’t store more than 60GB of PS3 data at one time and the purchase of a 500GB external hard drive was not justified. Thus, I did not have a backup save simply because I had the inability to do so.

Hey! HEY! Don’t make me smack you!

*ahem* Anyway, I cannot transfer files from one hard drive to the other even with the use of a Laptop Hard Drive Enclosure due to how Sony designed the software and I cannot install the 500GB hard drive to replace the 250GB hard drive of the Playstation Super Slim without formatting it. Thus, with much remorse, I had to reformat the hard drive and loose over six years of gaming data. Worse still was the fact that if I had tried to play a game to which I had gained PSN Trophies from before the data loss, those trophies were deleted and I would have to play that game all over again and earn those trophies one by one.

You can imagine my frustration.

However, in the following months (as of the publishing of this blog entry, or at least initial) I may have found a work around to my game data loss.

You see, this all started when I was inquiring as to how games were saved in Devil May Cry 2. I have only played Devil May Cry, Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition, and Devil May Cry up until this point in time. With the first game, one cannot pick and choose the level to perform a play back for any items or special missions but rather have to play the entire game if a player missed a collectible. With Devil May Cry 3 and Devil May Cry 4, not only is one able to go back to levels that were already completed to find easily missed collectibles, but able to do multiple difficulties at the same time.

And considering that I had the HD Collection version of those games, I was trying to complete trophies to as far as I can get before I moved onto the next game with the mindset that I have “completed” that game. Preferably I’d like to get all trophies, but sometimes one has to learn when to stop.

Yeah, yeah, consider me an old school completest…..to a degree….

Anyway, it was a simple enough inquiry to see how games were saved on Devil May Cry 2 when I stumbled upon this particular web page.

Oh how joyous I had felt when I had learned that I do not have to slave away all the games I have in my library to make up for the lost six years with my CECHAxx model. I could just download a game save of a game that I had completed (trust me, I was very tempted to get game save data of games I have bought but yet to play) and not have to worry about it. Better yet, that game save could be a 100% cleared.

Oh yes, I can hear you complain “But isn’t that cheating? That’s just lazy.” I say onto thee: “I HAD JUST LOST SIX YEARS OF GAME SAVES! GAMES THAT I HAD COMPLETED MYSELF! I think I’m entitled to at least a small compensation for my loss!”

However, it wasn’t the perfect solution to my dilemma. You see, certain publishers of said games would put in restrictions to such a tactic. Chief among them being that a game save must be done under the name of the PSN screen name of that player. If, for say, one would try to transfer one game save of a different player to another, the outcome is virtually upon the mercy of that publisher.

And in case you were wondering, the conclusion is typically a flat “no”.

I had found, through trial and error, that the best Playstation 3 games for such a tactic are very early Playstation 3 games within the 2006-2008 time frame that do not have trophy support. However, that was a very small percentile in my Playstation 3 library. Everything else was PSN Trophy supported.

However, I had found that such an issue does not exist with either Playstation 1 or Playstation 2 games. Which was useful, since I lost a few game save data that I didn’t back up. The only issue was that I had to use the external hard drive to save first from the computer and then onto the PS3 Super Slim and then to the Memory Card Adapter.

Which is odd considering that though the PS3 Super Slim is unable to read Playstation 2 game disks, let alone Playstation 1 games, it still has the ability to create virtual memory disks. Go figure….

On the plus side, I’ve now made it a habit to transfer all my saves onto my computer so if something does happen it’s not a complete and soul crushing loss. And especially useful since the 128MB memory card that I had purchased apparently doesn’t work anymore. I can’t even save or delete what data was on there.

There are fixes, however, to circumvent such a limitation of the Playstation 3 game saves or so I’ve been lead to believe. One such is this particular blog entry. However, it requires different programs in order to execute and I’m really not sure if I would want to experiment with my Playstation 3 in programming just yet in such a way.

Then again, I haven’t really played Devil May Cry 2 HD so it’ll be the perfect guenia pig for such an operation. I’ve been advised by one of my online friends that it’s advisable to NOT play that game. Still, if I were forced to choose either Devil May Cry 2 or that DmC remake by Ninja Theory, I’ll chose DMC2 without hesitation. That game and Ninja Theory can freeze their *bleep*s off in Lake Cocytus deep in the darkest bowels of hell itself, right next to Lucifer Satan.

But what I’m trying to say in this particular blog entry is this: If something goes wrong with your console and you have the choice to either send it to the manufacturer or fix it yourself, learn to solder!

Images courtesy of news.cnet.com and reactionface.info