WEBVTT

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- Today, I'll be telling you a story. The story of the mouse versus the mountain,

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the clod versus the God, David versus Goliath,

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except in my version of the story, David is kind of an annoying little (beep),

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and we're not sure if we should be rooting for him.

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That's right. (gentle upbeat music) This video is sponsored by dbrand,

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but because dbrand doesn't pay enough to review our sponsored videos before we post them,

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I'll be saying whatever the hell I want about the saga

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that took place that led up to the release of these.

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They're Darkplates 2.0 PlayStation 5 console covers.

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So, strap in or strap on, whatever it is you're into,

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and listen to my tale. It all began on a cold and polite day in Canada,

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when a mild and well-mannered company called dbrand,

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best known for making expensive stickers,

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released their Darkplates. A black colored version of Sony's original white plates

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for the PlayStation 5. There were a couple of differences. One being that they were black, hence the name Darkplates,

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and the other being that instead of having Sony's little X, O, triangle, square texture

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on the inside, they had a more dbrand one with little robots

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and nuclear symbols and I don't know, corrosive symbols,

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skull and crossbones, that sort of thing. I can never remember how to take these, okay.

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(plastic rattles) Then what happened next was something of a shocker

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for anyone who's never heard of Sony before, and has no familiarity

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with how they treat perceived infringements upon their intellectual property.

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Sony issued a cease and desist to dbrand,

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citing patents pending, which we found out later included a design patent

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for the unique shape of the PlayStation 5 console,

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and since this video is sponsored by dbrand, I'm not going to editorialize on the shape

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of the PlayStation 5 console other than to say that before dbrand sent me my bag of money

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to make this video, I had said that-- Also I think they were going

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for like Alienware futuristic curve,

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but it actually just ends up kind of looking warped.

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It just looks kind of defective to me. There are a number of reasons that Sony might've engaged

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in this type of lawyering. Dbrand's best guess is that they were trying

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to maintain a monopoly on different colored side plates,

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whether they come from Sony of themselves in the form of a new colorway of the console

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or whether they come from-- (static crackling) We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news.

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Sony just announced a couple of days ago, they're,

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oh, I was about to call them Darkplates. (laughs) (man laughing) Sorry, their replacement plates for the side

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of the PlayStation 5 they're available, and what do they call them? Like galaxy of colors or something like that?

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So, back to the video.

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A licensed partner. In my opinion, it's less about the actual side plates themselves,

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since if Sony gave two hoots how the console looked, they probably wouldn't have released them with these on them

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in the first place, and it's more about maintaining an iron-fisted grip

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on the overall accessory ecosystem, because whether you're Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft,

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that whole authorized, or certified program,

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is only worth the paper it's printed on, unless you go out and sue the bejesus out

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of anyone who doesn't apply for it. So, that's my best guess,

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but whatever the real reason is Sony has effectively won

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that stage of the battle. The good news is that the only real argument

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that they were able to make against dbrand producing their own plates was

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that dbrand's plates infringed upon Sony's unique

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and therefore wonderful shape. So, since dbrand, I think saw the writing on the wall

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about this at a fairly early stage, they almost immediately were able to counter with this.

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(funky upbeat music) Let's take a look at it. This is actually my first in-person look at Darkplates 2.0,

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and there are a number of key changes here. One that I actually didn't expect.

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Okay. First of all, let's look at the shape compared

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to the original plates. So, this appears to be our left side plate?

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Ah, yes. Okay, so we've got the disk version of the Darkplates 2.0.

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You can see it still has kind of a contour,

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but instead of having that popped collar look, it's got like a rounded corner look to it.

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One big difference you guys might have noticed is that it now comes with a ventilation hole.

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That is a pretty big deal in my opinion.

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Dbrand's already talked about this publicly, but GamersNexus did some thermal investigations

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on the PlayStation 5, and found that by removing the side panels,

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you could see lower internal temperatures by as much as about five degrees.

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Now, putting a dust filter on it might affect those results somewhat,

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probably to the tune of a couple of degrees. Especially if you, you know, end up with Cheeto dust caked

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onto your fan filter, (laughs) which David that's a legitimate gamer concern, okay?

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- [David] True. - But in my opinion, having the filter there at all,

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is an absolute boon, and I would personally opt for the however slight reduction in performance

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for having the filter, because you're gonna get way more

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of a difference in performance, if you let this thing just suck in dust forever.

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In case you don't want it, the fan filter is 100% removable.

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So, you can just opt to have it installed a little something like that.

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The thing I didn't know about and didn't expect was that after dbrand mocked Sony for claiming that this arrangement

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of symbols was somehow infringing upon Sony's arrangement

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of completely different symbols would result

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in them actually changing the little imprints on the inside

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of the console. So, now instead of having, you know,

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these four different symbols kind of arranged in the same kind of general area, it's just zeros and ones

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that almost certainly are some kind of manifesto

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about what horrible people Sony are. (laughs)

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Knowing them, I mean, David, is there any other possibility because?

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- [David] No, that's what it is. - That's got to be what it is. Have they talked about that publicly?

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- [David] No. - I'm sure it's what it is. You know, the irony is that in order for Sony

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to find out what it says, they're going to have to buy Darkplates. (laughs) (man laughing)

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Someone's going to have to check your Darkplates, and figure out what the heck this says.

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Nothing's cut off at the edges, so it's almost certainly an actual message.

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Can you see that?

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Overall, really good. (relaxing music) It appears as though they've basically eliminated

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any exterior defects. They've got a pretty nice kind of matte finish on it,

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and then they've got, you can see, they've got a little bit of rippling here.

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So, that might happen when the plastic isn't flowing evenly

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into the mold, or it can happen during cooling,

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little things like that. But on the outside, absolutely nothing.

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Looks really good on this side. So, what else can we say about it?

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We can apply dbrand skin. The one that looks like a PS1. I think legally they're not allowed to say

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it's the PS1 color, especially now that they're on Sony's radar.

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If I were them, I would just avoid any use of anything

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that Sony could possibly turn around and bother them over.

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This is totally not how you're supposed to do it. Dbrand.com/how.

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Hey, not bad, okay.

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I didn't say perfect. Pretty slick, huh?

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And I can say that after you do this, your PlayStation 5 will be objectively cooler.

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Get it? - [David] Hey. - Hey, 'cause of the vent holes.

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(PlayStation beeps) Which one is the power button, David? Oh, I found it.

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Hey, there they are. Check that out.

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As part of the new Darkplates 2.0 design,

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you can get these little like light bar filter things.

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You can get them in a bunch of different colors. Unfortunately, they're not RGB because that would have

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to actually be built into the PlayStation hardware. But they are little diffusers that, oh my God, are they RGB?

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What just happened? - [David] No, so you haven't put them on, yet.

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That's the PS5 color. - But it's blue?

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Well, they don't appear to be in the package they sent, but they're definitely on dbrand's website,

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which you can check out at the link down below. Thank you dbrand for sponsoring this video,

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and making everyone's PlayStations look better. One set of Darkplates at a time.

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That's totally the route that I would go. Although, I don't know that I'd go black Darkplates.

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They've actually got a few different colors. I'd probably go white. - [David] Gray?

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- [David] White? - Yeah. - [David] Oh. - Yeah, so it's like a white and gray.

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Actually, I'd probably just go all gray. Man, it makes this thing so much more of like a blend

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in with your home theater looking device, hey?

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Like compared to the big ole like. (David laughing)

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Oh, and what's nice about the gray too is it'll match the ugly cheap gray metal

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(plastic rattles) that Sony put on the inside, and didn't bother to treat with anything.

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Yeah, I like it. Oh, I guess I didn't actually show you guys exactly how

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to clean the fan filters. (plastic rattling) I did accidentally pop it off, but you just twist it off,

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and then you go clean it because you're filthy,

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and then you put it back. It's weird.

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They've got a mark on here that seems to kind of help you put it in the right spot,

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but I don't see a corresponding mark on the inside

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of the Darkplate. The only thing I can tell you is you might want to just put your own little scratch on it so that

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it's a little bit easier to line up. 'Cause we try and put it on the wrong thing,

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you can see the spacing of the tabs isn't right. So it might just take you a little while to get it

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in exactly the right spot. Okay, we got the other colors it turns out.

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(box thuds) That's pretty sweet. We still didn't find the light filter things,

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but that's okay. That's less of a big deal from my perspective.

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I want to put the retro gray on here. - [David] Oh.

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- Oh, I'm kind of liking it, David. - [David] Yeah, me too, oh.

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- And the best part is, - [David] You're not on right. - you don't get that contrast with the the unfinished metal

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on the inside and the color out here because they actually kind of look the same

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through the fan filter. That's not bad, is it?

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- [David] Yeah, I like that. - [Colton] Dbrand should make skins for the metal inside.

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- Man, you could probably get like, they should make skins for the metal inside actually.

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Dbrand, (hands clap) hey, let's go. You need white and black skins to match the Darkplates

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for the little metal grill thing inside. Come on.

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You'll charge 10 bucks for them because you hate your customers so much, and everyone will win.

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Oh, it's not bad. In my opinion, if you want the console to be white,

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then you can just keep having your console be white,

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but the gray ones and the black ones, especially the gray ones.

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So, that's it. Thanks dbrand for sponsoring this video.

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(beep) you dbrand for sponsoring this video. Thanks, you guys, for watching.

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Subscribe to ShortCircuit. JK, dbrand, love you.

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JK, you suck. (laughs) Sorry, just I'm all over the place in this relationship.