- Today, I'll be telling you a story. The story of the mouse versus the mountain,
the clod versus the God, David versus Goliath,
except in my version of the story, David is kind of an annoying little (beep),
and we're not sure if we should be rooting for him.
That's right. (gentle upbeat music) This video is sponsored by dbrand,
but because dbrand doesn't pay enough to review our sponsored videos before we post them,
I'll be saying whatever the hell I want about the saga
that took place that led up to the release of these.
They're Darkplates 2.0 PlayStation 5 console covers.
So, strap in or strap on, whatever it is you're into,
and listen to my tale. It all began on a cold and polite day in Canada,
when a mild and well-mannered company called dbrand,
best known for making expensive stickers,
released their Darkplates. A black colored version of Sony's original white plates
for the PlayStation 5. There were a couple of differences. One being that they were black, hence the name Darkplates,
and the other being that instead of having Sony's little X, O, triangle, square texture
on the inside, they had a more dbrand one with little robots
and nuclear symbols and I don't know, corrosive symbols,
skull and crossbones, that sort of thing. I can never remember how to take these, okay.
(plastic rattles) Then what happened next was something of a shocker
for anyone who's never heard of Sony before, and has no familiarity
with how they treat perceived infringements upon their intellectual property.
Sony issued a cease and desist to dbrand,
citing patents pending, which we found out later included a design patent
for the unique shape of the PlayStation 5 console,
and since this video is sponsored by dbrand, I'm not going to editorialize on the shape
of the PlayStation 5 console other than to say that before dbrand sent me my bag of money
to make this video, I had said that-- Also I think they were going
for like Alienware futuristic curve,
but it actually just ends up kind of looking warped.
It just looks kind of defective to me. There are a number of reasons that Sony might've engaged
in this type of lawyering. Dbrand's best guess is that they were trying
to maintain a monopoly on different colored side plates,
whether they come from Sony of themselves in the form of a new colorway of the console
or whether they come from-- (static crackling) We interrupt this program to bring you breaking news.
Sony just announced a couple of days ago, they're,
oh, I was about to call them Darkplates. (laughs) (man laughing) Sorry, their replacement plates for the side
of the PlayStation 5 they're available, and what do they call them? Like galaxy of colors or something like that?
So, back to the video.
A licensed partner. In my opinion, it's less about the actual side plates themselves,
since if Sony gave two hoots how the console looked, they probably wouldn't have released them with these on them
in the first place, and it's more about maintaining an iron-fisted grip
on the overall accessory ecosystem, because whether you're Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft,
that whole authorized, or certified program,
is only worth the paper it's printed on, unless you go out and sue the bejesus out
of anyone who doesn't apply for it. So, that's my best guess,
but whatever the real reason is Sony has effectively won
that stage of the battle. The good news is that the only real argument
that they were able to make against dbrand producing their own plates was
that dbrand's plates infringed upon Sony's unique
and therefore wonderful shape. So, since dbrand, I think saw the writing on the wall
about this at a fairly early stage, they almost immediately were able to counter with this.
(funky upbeat music) Let's take a look at it. This is actually my first in-person look at Darkplates 2.0,
and there are a number of key changes here. One that I actually didn't expect.
Okay. First of all, let's look at the shape compared
to the original plates. So, this appears to be our left side plate?
Ah, yes. Okay, so we've got the disk version of the Darkplates 2.0.
You can see it still has kind of a contour,
but instead of having that popped collar look, it's got like a rounded corner look to it.
One big difference you guys might have noticed is that it now comes with a ventilation hole.
That is a pretty big deal in my opinion.
Dbrand's already talked about this publicly, but GamersNexus did some thermal investigations
on the PlayStation 5, and found that by removing the side panels,
you could see lower internal temperatures by as much as about five degrees.
Now, putting a dust filter on it might affect those results somewhat,
probably to the tune of a couple of degrees. Especially if you, you know, end up with Cheeto dust caked
onto your fan filter, (laughs) which David that's a legitimate gamer concern, okay?
- [David] True. - But in my opinion, having the filter there at all,
is an absolute boon, and I would personally opt for the however slight reduction in performance
for having the filter, because you're gonna get way more
of a difference in performance, if you let this thing just suck in dust forever.
In case you don't want it, the fan filter is 100% removable.
So, you can just opt to have it installed a little something like that.
The thing I didn't know about and didn't expect was that after dbrand mocked Sony for claiming that this arrangement
of symbols was somehow infringing upon Sony's arrangement
of completely different symbols would result
in them actually changing the little imprints on the inside
of the console. So, now instead of having, you know,
these four different symbols kind of arranged in the same kind of general area, it's just zeros and ones
that almost certainly are some kind of manifesto
about what horrible people Sony are. (laughs)
Knowing them, I mean, David, is there any other possibility because?
- [David] No, that's what it is. - That's got to be what it is. Have they talked about that publicly?
- [David] No. - I'm sure it's what it is. You know, the irony is that in order for Sony
to find out what it says, they're going to have to buy Darkplates. (laughs) (man laughing)
Someone's going to have to check your Darkplates, and figure out what the heck this says.
Nothing's cut off at the edges, so it's almost certainly an actual message.
Can you see that?
Overall, really good. (relaxing music) It appears as though they've basically eliminated
any exterior defects. They've got a pretty nice kind of matte finish on it,
and then they've got, you can see, they've got a little bit of rippling here.
So, that might happen when the plastic isn't flowing evenly
into the mold, or it can happen during cooling,
little things like that. But on the outside, absolutely nothing.
Looks really good on this side. So, what else can we say about it?
We can apply dbrand skin. The one that looks like a PS1. I think legally they're not allowed to say
it's the PS1 color, especially now that they're on Sony's radar.
If I were them, I would just avoid any use of anything
that Sony could possibly turn around and bother them over.
This is totally not how you're supposed to do it. Dbrand.com/how.
Hey, not bad, okay.
I didn't say perfect. Pretty slick, huh?
And I can say that after you do this, your PlayStation 5 will be objectively cooler.
Get it? - [David] Hey. - Hey, 'cause of the vent holes.
(PlayStation beeps) Which one is the power button, David? Oh, I found it.
Hey, there they are. Check that out.
As part of the new Darkplates 2.0 design,
you can get these little like light bar filter things.
You can get them in a bunch of different colors. Unfortunately, they're not RGB because that would have
to actually be built into the PlayStation hardware. But they are little diffusers that, oh my God, are they RGB?
What just happened? - [David] No, so you haven't put them on, yet.
That's the PS5 color. - But it's blue?
Well, they don't appear to be in the package they sent, but they're definitely on dbrand's website,
which you can check out at the link down below. Thank you dbrand for sponsoring this video,
and making everyone's PlayStations look better. One set of Darkplates at a time.
That's totally the route that I would go. Although, I don't know that I'd go black Darkplates.
They've actually got a few different colors. I'd probably go white. - [David] Gray?
- [David] White? - Yeah. - [David] Oh. - Yeah, so it's like a white and gray.
Actually, I'd probably just go all gray. Man, it makes this thing so much more of like a blend
in with your home theater looking device, hey?
Like compared to the big ole like. (David laughing)
Oh, and what's nice about the gray too is it'll match the ugly cheap gray metal
(plastic rattles) that Sony put on the inside, and didn't bother to treat with anything.
Yeah, I like it. Oh, I guess I didn't actually show you guys exactly how
to clean the fan filters. (plastic rattling) I did accidentally pop it off, but you just twist it off,
and then you go clean it because you're filthy,
and then you put it back. It's weird.
They've got a mark on here that seems to kind of help you put it in the right spot,
but I don't see a corresponding mark on the inside
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
it's a little bit easier to line up. 'Cause we try and put it on the wrong thing,
you can see the spacing of the tabs isn't right. So it might just take you a little while to get it
in exactly the right spot. Okay, we got the other colors it turns out.
(box thuds) That's pretty sweet. We still didn't find the light filter things,
but that's okay. That's less of a big deal from my perspective.
I want to put the retro gray on here. - [David] Oh.
- Oh, I'm kind of liking it, David. - [David] Yeah, me too, oh.
- And the best part is, - [David] You're not on right. - you don't get that contrast with the the unfinished metal
on the inside and the color out here because they actually kind of look the same
through the fan filter. That's not bad, is it?
- [David] Yeah, I like that. - [Colton] Dbrand should make skins for the metal inside.
- Man, you could probably get like, they should make skins for the metal inside actually.
Dbrand, (hands clap) hey, let's go. You need white and black skins to match the Darkplates
for the little metal grill thing inside. Come on.
You'll charge 10 bucks for them because you hate your customers so much, and everyone will win.
Oh, it's not bad. In my opinion, if you want the console to be white,
then you can just keep having your console be white,
but the gray ones and the black ones, especially the gray ones.
So, that's it. Thanks dbrand for sponsoring this video.
(beep) you dbrand for sponsoring this video. Thanks, you guys, for watching.
Subscribe to ShortCircuit. JK, dbrand, love you.
JK, you suck. (laughs) Sorry, just I'm all over the place in this relationship.