Ep. 33, Page 44

smbhax on April 19, 2018

Move prep episode 99xx: rooting around in old video game stuff from my storage space. (I have way too much old video game stuff, it was pretty much all I spent my money on during the 10 years I worked in the game industry. :“P) Found two more PSP batteries, both, like the one I'd found previously, swelled up to where they can't fit in the battery compartment anymore. Curiously, they swell up on one side of the battery, under a large label, and that whole side feels soft, unlike the hard plastic of the rest of the battery case. It's almost as though…they knew this would happen?

So anyway I have no unswelled PSP batteries, but I can power the things on to reset them (in preparation for donating them) using their charging cables for power. Then I realize I should ”deactivate“ them from my PS3s that they're registered on–I guess really this isn't necessary, it would just mean that if there was any downloadable game of mine on a memory stick in them–which there isn't, I've formatted the mem sticks and am going to try to sell them to GameStop : P–then that game could no longer be run. Or something like that. But I wanted to dot all the i's here so I hook them up to my PS3 and go through the deactivation procedure–but I can't deactivate one of the PSPs from the PS3 because the PSP is using an old version of its operating system–and for some reason needs to be on a newer version so it can be deactivated? Huhh.

Well either it's so old that none of its WiFi (it calls it ”WLAN“ or something : pp) security schemes are compatible with my WiFi router, or I've forgotten my own WiFi password–which I don't think I have. But you can download new versions of the PSP OS off of Sony's web site to your PC, then put them on a memory card in the PSP through the PSP's USB cable. So I do that. Go to run the software update on the PSP and…it can't do it, because it doesn't have a charged battery. Even though it is plugged in, it still needs a battery to update–I guess they wanted to be sure your system didn't get bricked when your power went out or something…but this is a risk with EVERY NON-PORTABLE SYSTEM YOU PROBABLY OWN. Sigh. So, swelled batteries, no PSP update, no deactivation. : P

Hunting around Sony's site, they have at least two separate pages for deactivating systems registered to your account. One says it will deactivate all systems for you (but only once every six months)–why you can't select specific ones, I can't imagine. And I think this doesn't include PSP systems, which another support page says must be deactivated from the PS3 to which they're registered, which I can't do. So anyway I press the deactivate all systems button. Then I find another page, saying I still have one activated PS3 system. Which one is anyone's guess. My old US one that fried itself? My current US one? My old Japanese one? My friend's that I've logged in on before? None at all, because I just deactivated all of them from the other page on their site, only this one refuses to update? I'm not allowed to know. I go through a customer support form, type in one of the system's serial numbers, and get an auto-reply saying I'll hear back in 24 hours if my deactivation request will be granted. Boy. I try the form again with another system's serial number–nope, can't do that, already have a request in the system. Cool.

I'm pretty sure at this point that deactivating them doesn't matter all that much for my purposes and I'm not so sure why I bothered. But boy they don't make it easy. Oh yeah and some system is still activated for ”video“ (rather than the other category, ”games“), but there's no mechanism for removing the ”video" activated system (they're kind enough, at least, to tell you that much). Is that the old, fried PS3 on which I rented a movie from their on-board service once? No idea. Apparently I'd have to call them and talk to people about this in order have a hope of getting it cleared up. Think I'll leave it. : P