Low Battery, Lower Tolerance

The trials and tribulations of dealing with the DualSense controller, the economy, and my dad's complaints at the cash register.

Pictured: Me shouting “Kobe”, from the safety of my abode whilst hucking a DualSense controller into a garbage can.

God, I despise the DualSense.

I just wanted to complain a bit in this post.

(Disclaimer: This is an effort to kind of write more, and in shorter bursts, while certain topics are on the brain. I am certainly going to keep posting my thoughts on video games and reviewing new and old stuff, but this is my first attempt at a topical post that isn’t focused exclusively on a video game or series of games. Maybe I'll name these things something else one day? Who knows…)

I think PlayStation, and Sony as their corporate parent, to a larger extent, are now in the business of making luxury hardware for folks who have disposable income. They have sort of leaned slowly into the direction of selling more expensive consoles and peripherals to an ‘upper-class’ type of clientele that has the financial maneuverability to be able to purchase their higher-cost offerings.

It’s an unfortunate reality that we are all living in. The cost of goods and services has gone up dramatically year over year, with companies and individuals in the current economic climate charging more for their products, which is due in large part to the political landscape we find ourselves in as Americans.

These decisions have caused strain in the global trade and business relationships between our country and the rest of the world.

How can you negotiate with a madman?

Do you just tax him back??

The main fact you should take away from the current economic situation is this: trade wars are good for no one. When we play that game, everyone loses. It’s a silly way to tear down all the political and financial goodwill America as a country has worked so hard to cultivate with its neighboring countries and leaders around the world.

Starting a fight with our country’s friends and neighbors is the wrong thing to do if we want to truly “Make America Great Again”, like the orange man gestures so heavily towards, in his unfortunate rhetoric.

Let’s keep the main thing, the main thing, though. It’s easy to careen into despair when talking about things like this that cost money.

Gaming is, after all, a hobby to be enjoyed.

In the grand scheme of things, there are more important things to take care of in life before attending to the buying and playing of video games.

Gaming isn’t inessential, but when it comes to living daily life, our daily needs and financial responsibilities ultimately come first, once we decide where we need to allocate our funds in a given pay period. I wish this weren’t the case, but putting food on the table is a bit more important than playing that hot new game that just came out.

You can’t eat a digital license, now, can you?

More people are being shrewd about where and when they spend money. The costs of doing business are rising rapidly, while people’s wages are not. The rising tide is sinking all of the ships that can’t stay afloat. We are in the middle of the ‘widening’-- a gap between classes that gets larger, and more concerning, by the day. The rich are getting richer, while the poor people are getting priced out of the bare necessities of life. Being hungry, though, doesn’t allow you to “eat the rich”. Maybe taxing wealthy folks more for making more money would alleviate this problem?? Wild thought, I know.

When you’re starving, buying that big screen television just isn’t as important, you know?

I am lucky to have some disposable income to use for buying things I want (within reason of course).

I bought a Switch 2 recently, for instance, and I am anxiously awaiting its impending release (on my birthday of all things!). I swapped out my dusty, old, and abandoned Xbox Series S to help with the price of a Switch 2 preorder cost and I was very glad I did so. Once the Switch 2 hits and I pick it up, I may just write about my whole experience with purchasing one at my local store, a GameStop location in my town’s shopping mall.

To be determined!

My most recent gaming hardware purchase, though, was this past weekend, where I picked up a couple of DualSense controllers from Target.

When I brought in my Series S to GameStop, I also traded in my original white DualSense that was giving me trouble.

For some reason, the launch PS5 hardware was not as good as future skews of the same product.

The launch version of the PS5 console was prone to have faulty disc drives that crapped out shortly after release, and what’s more, the battery life on a launch PS5 DualSense remote had a very slim life of around 2-3 hours a charge. Turns out I got all the bad luck in the world in this case, because I have both a faulty drive and shitty battery life in my controllers. Great, I thought, now I gotta pony up big for some accessories, and I needed to do it fast because costs are rising rapidly for gaming hardware and add-ons.

Note: (As of the time of this writing, Sony has not raised prices of their hardware and accessories in the United States, but with Microsoft ripping the proverbial ‘band-aid’ off and raising the prices of all their Xbox products in every territory, it’s really just a matter of time before Sony follows suit and does the same thing with their products in the PlayStation family.)

This was after months of just dealing with myriad issues with my remotes. I had two different colors of DualSense: white and hot pink, with both being launch window remotes with battery life issues. I know you can technically replace the batteries in each (breaking the warranty), but I didn’t think I was brave enough to try.

I despised using these controllers, let me tell you.

I was charging them all of the time, it felt like. I would play an hour to an hour and a half of a game before the low battery notification would display on my PlayStation overlay.

The buttons also got stuck to the remote incredibly easily. No matter how many times you would clean out little bits of detritus from between the button housing and the joysticks, both input locations would just continue to keep sticking, in various ways.

The touchpad was also overly sensitive to even the slightest touch. In some games, the touchpad is used for either menuing or guideposts, like in “Ghost of Tsushima,” where you can flick the pad, and a cool breeze will appear to guide you to your selected objective.

It was a horrible feeling to literally fight the controller in my hands daily. The PS5 is my most used console, and having to deal with so much bullshit to play my games was infuriating.

I considered just throwing them away and being done with them, buying new ones to replace the ones I discarded.

I didn’t, but the idea crossed my mind.

The launch remotes just felt ‘chintzy’ and cheap, in comparison to newer controllers. Maybe the assembling and sourcing of parts became more quality as time went on, or perhaps when COVID hit, it made production even harder when it came to putting hardware together?

It’s unclear the reason, but at launch, the quality seemed low for the manufacturing end of the console and its peripherals.

The last straw with these remotes came while I was playing “Split Fiction” (the newest Hazelight game) with my wife, Alex. The battery issues had gotten so bad, we couldn’t get a single level finished in the game before the remotes died and needed to be charged. I had had enough.

We went to Target the next morning.

I decided to bite the bullet and get two since both of the controllers were having issues. So, I got a silver one, and my wife picked out a baby blue one (just a horrific shade of that color, let me tell you).

The price for both after tax was just shy of 200 dollars.

Holy shit. For two remotes?? This is the economy we are in???

I did the thing that dads do when they have to put money down on what they deem as expensive. I was flabbergasted— but I managed to remark, (to my lovely wife’s chagrin), “What? Geez, are you serious? Can’t be that expensive, right?? That can’t be how much you’re charging.”

My poor wife turned many shades of red out of embarrassment at my utterance, and best believe I heard about that on our way to the car.

My father made this move all the time, growing up. It was one of his favorite things to say to someone at the cash register, I found. I guess this sort of sticker shock just rubbed off on me…

My dad hates spending money when he has to. He isn’t a frugal person necessarily, but he LOVES griping about something he thinks is too expensive. It’s not a money issue usually either because he has always had enough money to get what he wants, but for some reason he always had a habit of grousing about the price of things at the checkout counter. Like he had just heard about the price right then and there.

Growing up, I learned that if you don’t like something pricey, you can complain about it, and I guess I just do that now. I don’t think it’s right, but— hell, you can’t change things now, I am getting set in my ways in my late twenties.

Anyways, yeah… That’s the story.

Shit is expensive, and I hate that damn controller.

The new ones are better in almost every way, but the memories of those old ones sticks to the sides of my brain even still, after purchasing replacements.

I still even have the hot pink one. That fucker.

I scoff every time I look at that thing now, because I have brand new ones I can use.

“I don’t need your ass, anymore,” I sneer viciously behind bared teeth, “You’re the BACKUP CONTROLLER!!! I hope you rot and get covered in dust mites!!!”

I keep that bastard as a reminder that the DualSense is terrible and I hate using it. It’s just a matter of time before these new ones go, I imagine, but at least things are better…

….For now.

Thanks for reading this, and keep gaming!!