Sony’s Patents are ALSO Retarded
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/26/26 at 04:25 PM CT
Oh dear, just a couple weeks ago, we had to take a look at just how willfully stupid Sony’s legal arguments have been when it comes to the topic of digital games and product ownership. Well, Sony’s lawyers aren’t the only absolute sh!theads working at the company, as a new patent reveals.
A little while ago, Nintendo got into trouble by trying to patent an incredibly basic game mechanic that has been part of gaming since it was done with pencils and paper instead of microprocessors. Well, it seems that the Big 3 of Nintendo, Sony, and XBOX are in a determined competition to see who can offer the WORST products, while still retaining the largest proportion of their locked-in user-base.
Sony recently filed a new patent for a feature they plan to implement into PlayStation controllers at some undetermined point in the future: A credit card reader. Yes, you read that right. Sony has completely pulled off the mask and are no longer even pretending to be anything but …
Microsoft to Resurrect Metered Billing with Gamepass Changes
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/20/26 at 01:01 PM CT
If you’re a Millennial or Zoomer, you’ve probably never heard of metered billing. Thanks to commodities of scale and a race to the bottom among corporate competitors, nearly all of the Web 3.0 subscription services have been “all you can eat” deals,where you pay a flat fee each month and can use the service as much as you want.
For those of us older than Pepperidge Farms... well we DO remember metered billing for everything, including stuff that nobody would even think about metering now, like long-distance phone calls. What were long-distance phone calls? Any phone call made to a number outside of your local 3-digit prefix. If I wanted to call home from school during the day, I had to get permission from the principal in order to make a long-distance call on the school’s dime. Even worse, if my Troll Dad wanted to talk to his Even Trollier Mother, he had to pay long-distance fees... by the MINUTE.
Well, our favorite punching bag, Microsoft’s XBOX Games Division, is …
Sony’s Lawyers are Retarded
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/13/26 at 03:27 PM CT
The recent backlash and attempted boycott of Sony’s digital PlayStation features wasn’t the only thing customers have done in an attempt to fight back against Sony’s latest hubristic moves toward totalitarian control of everything PlayStation. There was also a class-action lawsuit, arguing that Sony’s terminology on their digital stores was misleading.
Sony brought their best crack-team of lawyers to fight back against the class-action suit... and it would seem that the crack-team might just flat-out be smoking crack, since their arguments as to why PlayStation customers have no legal rights to the products they buy digitally are so incredibly stupid they go beyond the mere “bad faith” that we have come to expect of our corrupt lawyers in the 20th and 21st Centuries, all the way to what the classic (?) comedy, “Tropic Thunder,” dubbed “full retard.”
First, Sony attempted to argue that no reasonable customer would click on the word “buy” or “purchase” …
There is Nothing New Under the Sun: The Erosion of Digital Rights
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/06/26 at 12:06 AM CT
There has been a big backlash against Sony’s recent announcement of the end of PlayStation discs in 2028. There was even a week-long PlayStation Blackout movement that... I’ve been participating in since 2014. The entire debacle, including its implications for PlayStation players’ (I almost typed “owners” there, but that’s the crux of the whole issue) rights in an ecosystem where the Company owns the platform, the store, and, ultimately, the things you “license” (again, I almost typed “buy” there) from the store, are chilling. Indeed, it’s highly reminiscent of the kind of corrupt slavery-adjacent behavior foisted on low-wage, low-skill workers in the era of Company Stores and Scrip Currency.
Penny Arcade, the Gaming webcomic that has been around for nearly 30 (!) years at this point, recently had a similar notion, calling out the current trends in Industrial Gaming as less of a new, terrible thing being foisted upon customers, and more of a return to the …
Review Round-Up: Summer 2026
Nelson Schneider - wrote on 09/01/26 at 03:59 PM CT
Welcome back to another installment of the MeltedJoystick Review Round-Up. Here’s what our staff has reviewed since last time:
Nelson’s Reviews:
I finally broke out of my “Warframe” rut, thanks in large part to diving into a new “Fortnite: Save the World” rut, dealing with daily missions and the seasonal Venture Zones. I still managed to force myself to finish “Lost Odyssey,” then tried to enjoy some other RPG-adjacent things, but, sadly, didn’t. I was actually expecting to have the lowest number of reviews this quarter, but it turns out that everyone else was having an even worse time with our collective hobby than I.
Lost Odyssey – 3/5
Granblue Fantasy: Relink – 3/5
Dragon Quest Treasures – 3.5/5
Chris’ Reviews:
I don’t know what Chris has been doing, but it certainly hasn’t been working on his backlog, ablutions or otherwise. He has jumped into that same “Fortnite: Save the World” rut with me – he was also the one who informed the …
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