OT: Video Game Computers/Gadgets/Gizmos Thread

[stellation]

Huawei has a solid reputation for quality at an affordable price. But I'm skeptical that they aren't a company that creates affordable devices to enable China to spy on others. Maybe I should take my tinfoil hat off.

I think that's more of a legitimate concern than you give it credit for.

Random story, but I suspected an old landlord had made a habit of entering our unit without proper notice, since he was also our neighbor. I bought a cheap webcam I found on Amazon, that I just wanted something to snap a few pictures upon motion activation. It came from China so it took a few weeks to arrive. When I unboxed it, it only turned on for a few seconds. It did what sounded like snapped a quick picture turning off. This was plugged into my wall and different outlets didn't work.

I contacted their customer support and they said it wasn't getting enough power so I should plug it into my computer. Since that doesn't make sense I suggested it may be defective so I swap it out for another. They sent back another email strongly suggesting I plug it into my computer through USB and they insisted it would work better. It was extremely shady and there wasn't a chance I was about to plug it into my home PC. I ended up throwing it away without trying to get a refund. I felt like I had a pretty thick tinfoil hat on, but there was a non-zero chance that thing was about to phone home with everything it could find, so I didn't take the risk.

Having said all that, I'm pretty **** pumped about this laptop

Brother, it's pretty clear we need closure on whether you ever caught your landlord out.

[Aaron It Out]

Huawei has a solid reputation for quality at an affordable price. But I'm skeptical that they aren't a company that creates affordable devices to enable China to spy on others. Maybe I should take my tinfoil hat off.

I think that's more of a legitimate concern than you give it credit for.

Random story, but I suspected an old landlord had made a habit of entering our unit without proper notice, since he was also our neighbor. I bought a cheap webcam I found on Amazon, that I just wanted something to snap a few pictures upon motion activation. It came from China so it took a few weeks to arrive. When I unboxed it, it only turned on for a few seconds. It did what sounded like snapped a quick picture turning off. This was plugged into my wall and different outlets didn't work.

I contacted their customer support and they said it wasn't getting enough power so I should plug it into my computer. Since that doesn't make sense I suggested it may be defective so I swap it out for another. They sent back another email strongly suggesting I plug it into my computer through USB and they insisted it would work better. It was extremely shady and there wasn't a chance I was about to plug it into my home PC. I ended up throwing it away without trying to get a refund. I felt like I had a pretty thick tinfoil hat on, but there was a non-zero chance that thing was about to phone home with everything it could find, so I didn't take the risk.

Having said all that, I'm pretty **** pumped about this laptop

Brother, it's pretty clear we need closure on whether you ever caught your landlord out.

Nah. We just ended up moving out. I was a broke student and got frustrated with cheap cameras so I was never able to get any evidence. Then he tried keeping our security deposit. I asked for receipts and he sent me receipts for paint brushes and some other things that you aren't allowed to charge tenants for. It also didn't add up to how much he kept. Sent him a letter and he sent an estimate to replace the flooring in one of the rooms (not a receipt, a price quote). After a bunch of back and forth he finally admitted to being broke and not having my deposit, in writing. I was about to take him to small claims before his dad bailed him out.

That's just one story with this guy. Worst landlord experience I've ever had.

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

[Sauce Boss]

Weird New Year's goal is to spend significantly less on video games this year. I tracked all my purchases last year and dropped close to $700 in total on games/DLC/micro-transactions (a brief, but strong, addiction to Hearthstone in the middle of the year tanked me). Trying to avoid buying games in the zeitgeist or sequels for collection purposes, and only get stuff I will for sure play with less and less free time to dedicate to the hobby.

Outside of a small slip up last night (I bought Hollow Knight a second time for $9 on the Switch), I think I'm targeting only Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and the TBD Pokemon game as my essentials. Then I have a strong inclination for Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal (if it hits Steam), and a potential Red Dead Redemption 2 port on PC. Outside cases for Bayonetta 3 and Metroid Prime 4 if they magically come out next year.

Hopefully I can stick to it and complete more of my backlog.

[MikeIsGood]

Weird New Year's goal is to spend significantly less on video games this year. I tracked all my purchases last year and dropped close to $700 in total on games/DLC/micro-transactions (a brief, but strong, addiction to Hearthstone in the middle of the year tanked me). Trying to avoid buying games in the zeitgeist or sequels for collection purposes, and only get stuff I will for sure play with less and less free time to dedicate to the hobby.

Outside of a small slip up last night (I bought Hollow Knight a second time for $9 on the Switch), I think I'm targeting only Animal Crossing, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and the TBD Pokemon game as my essentials. Then I have a strong inclination for Cyberpunk 2077, Doom Eternal (if it hits Steam), and a potential Red Dead Redemption 2 port on PC. Outside cases for Bayonetta 3 and Metroid Prime 4 if they magically come out next year.

Hopefully I can stick to it and complete more of my backlog.

Lol, good luck Taking the opposite approach to jschligs, I see.

I picked up Smash, Mario+Rabbids ($25), NBA Playgrounds 2 ($20), Dead Cells ($10), Diablo 3 ($40) all this weekend for Christmas. Looking forward to Dead Cells as I saw you guys talking about it non-stop for a while. Seems like a **** load of fun.

I also bought Battlefield V today for $30 at Newegg. Was waiting till it hit 30 or less as I've always loved BF but I wasn't in love with this ones beta.

This is way more than I need right now. I'm still trying to work through AC, RDR2 and hitting Gold rank in Overwatch.

[jschligs]

Yea, I have a problem. It's weird because I'm incredibly frugal/cheap except for when it comes to games on sale. I keep bouncing between RDR2 (online is super fun with friends), Smash, NBA 2k, Overwatch, BFV and even some PUBG this last week...

When I was younger I had all of the time and no money, now I have all some of the money and no time.

[MikeIsGood]

When I was younger I had all of the time and no money, now I have all some of the money and no time.

This is seriously the worst. Responsibilities suck.

You seem to do well playing multiple games at once. It's something I really struggle with, and often causes me to not play/finish (or "finish") games even if I really liked them or wanted to play them. I get tunnel vision and play one thing because I'm obsessed with it. I've been better recently, but it's still only two games really (PoE and AC:Odyssey), plus Disgaea 5 on Switch when I'm travelling.

I've moved on from SSBU. It was fun for 10-15 hours for me maybe, but I'm just not a big enough fighting game fan.

[ReasonablySober]

When I was younger I had all of the time and no money, now I have all some of the money and no time.

This is seriously the worst. Responsibilities suck.

You seem to do well playing multiple games at once. It's something I really struggle with, and often causes me to not play/finish (or "finish") games even if I really liked them or wanted to play them. I get tunnel vision and play one thing because I'm obsessed with it. I've been better recently, but it's still only two games really (PoE and AC:Odyssey), plus Disgaea 5 on Switch when I'm travelling.

I've moved on from SSBU. It was fun for 10-15 hours for me maybe, but I'm just not a big enough fighting game fan.

Yea, same. I think I'm gonna pick up Hollow Knight and Steamworld Dig 2.

[MikeIsGood]

Civ fans / curious Civ-ites: it's on sale on Steam. Civ 6 Gold (game, all DLC, first expansion) is $38. Civ 5 Complete (everything) is $49. I'd recommend it to anyone. I'm buying and looking forward to eventually playing 6 when I get to it - I'm really intrigued by the districts idea - but I love 5 so much I'd still recommend checking it out. Best in the series IMO.

[stellation]

I can't remember if this is the right thread for Hi-Fi sort of questions, but does anyone have experience with a decent turntable with built-in pre-amp (and bypass for it) with bluetooth connection? I'd like to pick up a new one to pop in a different spot to my main stereo, I'm honing in on a couple but thought I'd check.

Heaps of cheapies out there that kinda do it, but I'm worried about arm weight killing my tunes, man.

[Sauce Boss]

When I was younger I had all of the time and no money, now I have all some of the money and no time.

This is seriously the worst. Responsibilities suck.

You seem to do well playing multiple games at once. It's something I really struggle with, and often causes me to not play/finish (or "finish") games even if I really liked them or wanted to play them. I get tunnel vision and play one thing because I'm obsessed with it. I've been better recently, but it's still only two games really (PoE and AC:Odyssey), plus Disgaea 5 on Switch when I'm travelling.

I've moved on from SSBU. It was fun for 10-15 hours for me maybe, but I'm just not a big enough fighting game fan.

I struggle with the “not finishing” part because of decision indecision, but my time usually doesn’t go toward something I’m obsessed with. Usually I’ll feel guilty about my backlog and try to slog through something, which becomes a real grind. Can make a 10 hour game feel like 20 and a 40 hour game feel like 80.

That said, can’t justify spending on games I won’t spend a justifiable amount of time on, at least at full price. So I’m going to try to buckle down, beat my Switch backlog (Okami, Valkyria Chronicles 4, Zelda, and Hollow Knight) and then look at some overdue stuff on my PC (final Witcher expansion, XCOM 2 expansion, go back to Monster Hunter, etc...).

[jschligs]

I went ahead and calculated my total gaming expenses like Sauce (only games/subscriptions as I did WoW a few months again) and I spent a shade under $700. Not ideal considering I probably only played half of them so I'm going to try and be better this year at that. It's that damn slickdeals.net website I go to every morning.

[ackypoo]

eh, video game hobbies are still a lot cheaper than some of the alternatives. try picking up a cocaine habit, thatll really hurt your wallet.

this is a joke. ive never even tried cocaine.

[ReasonablySober]

$1238. Yikes.

[Sauce Boss]

$1238. Yikes.

It adds up fast.

Of the 19 things I bought, I beat only 6 (granted I’m counting DLC in these numbers). So I want those numbers to be closer than a, roughly, 33% completion rate.

[humanrefutation]

I spent around $450 on gaming in 2018, including about $40 on different mobile games I enjoy playing.

It's still about $150 more than I want to spend going forward. I always seem to buy a couple games that I don't get enough playtime out of. But it's better than it was a few years ago.

[ReasonablySober]

My biggest and dumbest thing was a subscription to PS-Plus and PS-Now that took my way too long to cancel. That was $250 down the drain. I'd put Humble Monthly in that category but at least I have access to a big backlog of Steam games and feel like I got my money's worth.

Otherwise:
Celeste - 21.09
Monster Hunter: World 59.99
Into the Breach - $15.81
Far Cry 5 59.99
God of War 59.99
Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon 9.99
Iconoclasts - 19.99
Pyre - 19.99
Darkest Dungeon 19.99
Hollow Knight - 15.83
Dead Cells x 2 - 52.72
Madden NFL 19 59.99
Spider-Man 59.99
Assassin's Creed Odyssey 59.99
Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 59.99
Red Dead Redemption 2 59.99
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds 29.99
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate 59.99
NBA 2k18 - 20.88 (no idea what this was??)
Nintendo online $21.90
GOG purchase - $12.49
AC: Odyssey DLC - $20.52
Ghost Recon Wildlands DLC - 19.99

Doesn't include any Gamestop used games or Steam purchases.

[ReasonablySober]

Test of willpower in the new year. Amazon is marking down a bunch of switch games to $41.

[jschligs]

WTF RS...why are you doing this to me?

Did anyone like Octopath Travelers? Kinda caught my eye but I wasn't ready to pay full price.

[BucksStatsGuy]

I can't remember if this is the right thread for Hi-Fi sort of questions, but does anyone have experience with a decent turntable with built-in pre-amp (and bypass for it) with bluetooth connection? I'd like to pick up a new one to pop in a different spot to my main stereo, I'm honing in on a couple but thought I'd check.

Heaps of cheapies out there that kinda do it, but I'm worried about arm weight killing my tunes, man.

What's your current stereo setup? I'm a bit puzzled why you'd want one with a built in pre-amp and bluetooth, since with the latter you are kind of negating one of the big reasons for listening to vinyl in the first place, which is to take advantage of different masterings and often higher dynamic range. Might as well just stream mp3s / FLACs if you are just going all digital. I haven't really heard of any turntables with bluetooth that are really any good, and streaming over bluetooth (regardless of format) isn't really optimal. But I suppose if you aren't really concerned with a pure analog chain, Audio Technica makes some decent tables, but not really sure about the Bluetooth one.

[MikeIsGood]

WTF RS...why are you doing this to me?

Did anyone like Octopath Travelers? Kinda caught my eye but I wasn't ready to pay full price.

Wondering the same. I can get it for $37 at Best Buy after a credit I have. I don’t need it now by any means, but did hope to still play it eventually if the price was right.