Don't you hate it when Sony makes two exciting product announcements and forces you to choose
between the sexy new smaller PS5 Slim and the old fat one with Spider-Man graphics all over it?
That's right guys, we got our hands on the Spider-Man 2 limited edition version of the PlayStation 5.
How did we do so with everybody scalping these things all over the place?
I'll give you one guess. It's Dbrand who sponsored this video.
That's right friends, Dbrand is back with yet another knockoff Sony Pro...
Sorry, excuse me knockoff. I mean artfully reimagined Sony accessory product.
So instead of paying upwards of 200 to 250 US dollars for one of the original re-skinned dark...
most called them dark plates. PS5 replacement covers from Sony, you can pick up these ones from Dbrand that are totally
distinct and different for... what is their pricing?
They give me all these talking points, they don't even give me a price. I don't know, I guess you'll have to go to the link in the video description to find out.
Presumably they're less expensive though and they've got Dbrand's extra ventilation hole
so you can expect your console to run cooler and quieter. First things first though, let's see if this thing is worth all the hype.
I've got the original Sony console right here.
Oh it comes with a controller too. I'm not that into skinned consoles but I can definitely see why people would be into this.
The PS5 DualSense controller is notoriously difficult to skin.
Not that Dbrand couldn't create a skin for it but because you guys couldn't apply them reliably
because it's almost entirely curved surfaces. So if you want a reliable graphic that's going to look good and last on it,
the only way to do that is to either get a controller that has graphics on it or,
I don't know, take it apart and paint it or something like that. While I'm getting this cracked open, it's probably worth touching on some of the complicated,
not to mention amusing history that exists between Dbrand and Sony.
I went into this in a little more detail in my original unboxing of Dbrand's Dark Plates,
but in a nutshell, Sony released a console that was generally considered to be
not very good looking in the living room. Dbrand sought to address this by creating replacements for the stock side panels which,
if I remember, come off a little something like that that come in different colors and had some
definitely not infringing but certainly cheeky little textured patterns in them and the like.
Sony then took issue with this and kind of went,
no, we own the replacement accessories market for the PlayStation 5.
Thank you very much. You will not be able to ship anything with this
square profile, so Dbrand countered with, well, we'll make a rounded one.
Now we're going one step further and even doing look-alike graphics for them.
Let's see just how much alike they look. Actually, they don't look that much alike.
I'm not a designer, so I'm not going to tell you guys what looks not infringing but more evocative
of spider webs or ropes or whatever the case may be, but I think Dbrand has done a pretty good
job. For me, the question is less one of design in spite of the talking points I have here that say,
if you agree with our assessment that their design is rather amateurish, then feel free to say so.
And more a question of cost and availability. You don't have to buy the limited edition of the console.
You can also get the original graphics from Sony in the form of just console covers.
The problem with that is that these are supposed to be available at the same MSRP as Dbrand's
definitely non-infringing dark plates, but instead are going for as much as 200 to 250 US dollars,
which is absolutely ludicrous given that you don't even get a Spider-Man themed controller to go
along with it. You just get these plates for the console if you can even find them for sale.
I do like the Spider-Man logo. I think my ideal would actually be a mix and match,
which is going to look really stupid, but I'm going to do it anyway. One second,
I just want to see this, okay? What if we had one dark plate and one stock plate?
Oh, good. Now everyone's mad at me. Don't worry, Frankenstein Spider-Man PlayStation isn't real
and can't hurt you. I don't like it. It is shocking to me how close they got the fit and
finish of these things to the stock plates. They really are easy to install. Both of them.
Once you know how to do it, I always forget how to do this.
It's also amazing to me that aside from unboxing these and showing you both versions of the console,
the original and the arachno plate version, which of course also has a vinyl skin that covers the
middle part of the console, D-Brand is sponsoring me to just play the new Spider-Man 2 game. I haven't
gotten to play it yet. Holy crap, this game looks good. Wow. This actually feels like walking around
on a New York street, except that this lady isn't bumping into me right now. Oh, I'm so sorry,
everybody. Oh my goodness. Sorry, I didn't play Spider-Man in 2018. I heard really good things.
It's from developer Insomniac Games, who is perhaps best known for the Spyro games from the PS1
era and Ratchet and Clank. But now, as far as I can tell, going to be best known for the Spider-Man
series because number one was rated at something, I think, like 87% on Metacritic and this one has
broken 90%. It appears to be very well received. This has got to be the most lived in feeling city
that I think I have ever seen in a video game. Look at all this traffic. So, oh, sorry, sorry,
oh, I'm sorry. Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Okay. This is kind of freaking awesome.
Can definitely see why people are into this. They did a ton of work on the optimization for
this game, apparently, as well. Getting it down to 10 seconds, according to what was a digital
foundry found this, 10 seconds from the PS5 loading screen to being in-game playing. Hey,
look at that. It's LMG headquarters from last month. There it is. Whee. Apparently, the game
features not only ray traced reflections, but in some cases, second reflections. So,
Puddlegate is no more. Oh, let's try performance mode. Man, now that I've seen it in its full high
fidelity glory, I'm not going to lie. Kind of would rather play it like that. One thing, though,
is Insomniac has a pretty good track record for bringing games to PC. So, hopefully, we will get
a release of this and I'll get to play it. I mean, I guess technically I could take a PlayStation
or maybe even that one. Whee. Oh, wow, that is super cool. Man, the city feels huge. That's
got to be a big part of the reason they didn't bring this to PS4. There's just no way. I'm going
to surprise this guy in his car. Hi. Are you bothered by this at all? No. Okay. We chill. Oh,
no, they notice me. And you probably noticed this video is probably over now. Subscribe to
ShortCircuit. See you later. Let the brand know they're not getting their controller back. Thanks.