I've seen the PS1 startup on youtube, but it feels so much better to actually see it on the TV when firing up the console. IDK why, it just feels so good, much better than the PS5 startup.

I'm wondering - does it save in a better way than an in-game save feature can? And if so, then can't games invoke this feature without invoking this menu? It's clunky and annoying.

Is there any PS dev here who can shed some light on that?

l used to view the News tab all the time to see updates on games I followed, but now it's full of Fortnite, Cod, Rocket league, and UFC posts. All games I've opted out of following.

This is so obnoxious. Who thought that was a good idea? If wanted to know about these games I would have followed them.

Preferably RPGs. I just finished Days Gone and loved it, but overlooked it for years because of bad reviews/not often discussed (I'm a pretty casual gamer). Looking for a new game and my favorite is third person.

Haven't played a tennis game in years and got the itch. What's the best PS5 compatible game out there? I've read mixed stuff about the new TopSpin.

Short version: my PS5 died, I was quoted $230 to repair it, ended up getting it covered (slightly) out of warranty. It was a circuitous route to get to here, so posting this in case it is helpful to anyone, for either debugging their error or for getting Playstation to cover your fix out of warranty in this late capitalist hellscape.

The Error + Debugging

A couple weeks ago I was playing Elden Ring, and when I was in the drawing room of Volcano Manor, a bunch of multi-colored particles filled my screen and the game crashed. When I tried to open it again (via Continue) the game would crash. If I opened up the "Load Game" menu, the game would also crash. I cleared cache, rebuilt database, deleted and reinstalled the game, and finally reset the ps5 software to factory settings, but all the same result. I thought this was an elden ring error as apparently that game bricks save files all the time, so I left for vacation the next day assuming that I lost 100 hours of work on a save.

When I got back, I just assumed I would need to start from the beginning and tried to start a new game. Shortly into that menu, the game also crashed. I tried opening gran turismo and that game crashed. I asked my roommate if he played anything while I was gone, and he said when he tried to play Helldivers on his account that also crashed. If I opened Apotheon, an ancient PS4 game, that was fine. So every PS5 game I tried to play crashed on open after the initial menus, all with the error code CE-108255-1.

Looking up that error I saw a lot of similar stories, apparently for some people it is a software issue that can be fixed with an update, for others a hardware issue that needs to be repaired. I was in the latter group. Based off of what I have read and my slightly educated guesses, I am guessing the GPU failed, the particles I saw in Volcano Manor might have just been raytracing residuals while my GPU shit the bed for the last time lol. I am guessing that the moment each game crashes is the moment where graphics processing shifts to the GPU (while opening the main menu in GT7, loading screens in Elden Ring, etc). But I don't know, just a guess.

I should also mention here that my PS5 is in excellent condition, I bought it about 18 months ago (CFI-1215A), and have played less than 500 hours on it. When I took off the dust cover to see if it needed cleaning, there was virtually no dust build-up, it has never been dropped, I do not keep it on rest-mode, I keep it in a well-ventilated area, and it does not have much fan noise and never gets hot. I keep it vertically, and always assumed that the issues that people associate with that wouldn't affect someone who only plays games for a couple hours on the weekend like me. Guess not!

Dealing with Support

I went to the playstation website and looked up the error code there, it asked me to do all of the same steps I have done before (clear cache, rebuild database, reset playstation), I confirmed that I have done all of those, and they asked me to send it in for repair for around $230. Right before the price was a menu saying that my PS5 was out of it's 90 DAY WARRANTY. I knew this was some bs so I didn't pay for now and backed out of that menu.

I figured I hadn't registered my PS5 with the warranty, so logged onto Sony's warranty site, and found out what many who have been through this likely know, that the warranty site does not recognize the PS5 model number, so there is no way to register it.

Looking around here and other places, I saw that 1. this is a common experience and 2. there were a lot of instances of playstation fixing consoles out of the warranty period. So I called support at 877-971-7669. Every time I called it seemed like they were closed and opening hours aren't anywhere, but when I called at around 1pm it was open (guessing they open at noon.)

I talked to a very helpful person who walked me through the same things that the site already took me through, asked for my serial etc to look up the repair, and said that it was out of the 1-year warranty and quoted me at $230 for a repair. I then said something along the lines of "Ok, I was calling mainly to see if I could still get it covered outside of that. I read online that Sony was covering playstations slightly out of the warranty period for this error, but I guess that isn't the case anymore." They said they would check on this for me, put me on hold, and when they came back on said they would cover it for free out of warranty and would ship a box to me.

Conclusion

If anyone runs into this and you have a few hours of your time to spare, get on the phone with a person and gently (but kindly) press. I get the sense that the playstation warranty is guilt-based rather than time-based. If you do it online it'll say 90 days, on the phone 1 year, and if you say aw shucks that's a bummer I thought they would cover this can you pretty please check they're like "ah fuck it why not". Seems like Sony's primary method of avoiding responsibility for their hardware failures is through making the claims process opaque and time-consuming.

Anyway, that's my experience. I got off the phone an hour ago and still haven't received the confirmation email so maybe they'll just ghost me in the end anyway.

Besides the PSA for future me's, also curious if people have had similar experiences. Also curious if anyone knows what precisely the hardware failure is, and if they will replace it with the same faulty GPU or an updated one?

I've purchased a copy of SM2 from Amazon since it was on a decent discount. Today I put the disc in and it's been taking almost 3 hours to install. Mind you, the data is solely being copied from disc, not downloaded. There was seemingly an issue with the European batch. Other users have reported the installation completely stopping around the 37 % mark.

Please check your copies as long as they are still within the return window ❤️

Soo anyone got preference to games like arma reforger, insurgency sandstorm or hell let loose. I’m looking into some FPS games other than the bs cod and battlefield that has been the same since when I was a kid.