Defective, counterfit Sony Memory Stick PRO Duo cards on ebay?

I have recently purchased a few MS PRO Duo cards from different sellers on ebay and it seems that they are all bad. 2 have broken and 1 wont let me insert it into the PSP any more. The defective part comes down to the same thing on all of them, the little part that covers the front of the card breaks off or is not aligned properly. I have a store bought Sony 2GB card and it works fine and the craftsmanship seems better than the others. I also have 2 SanDisk cards and they are built even better than the Sony cards, in fact I think I will only buy SanDisk cards from here on out. I just purchased an 8GB Sony card off ebay and it has not arrived yet and I am getting the feeling that it will be defective also. I have a 4GB SanDisk card coming from Amazon.com, and I hope this will be a good one. I am wondering if anyone else has found this to be a problem with MS PRO Duo cards purchased off ebay or other discount suppliers? I have had SD cards for years with no problems and not all are name brand, is it just the MS PRO Duo cards that are built cheaply? And they are also the most expensive of the different media cards. I was thinking about buying an adapter for Micro SD cards that will fit into the PSP, has anyone done this? I think that as of this blog I will only buy my MS PRO Duo cards from a brick and mortar store or just stick with SanDisk. I have inserted the broken cards into the adapters that come with the cards and can use them with my computer for file storage kind of like a flash drive, but I cant use them with the PSP and this is why I bought them. Anyway check out the image and if you have had the same problem let me know, I don’t think I am the only one that is getting bad media like this.

Top view of defective cards.

Bottom view of defective cards

Broken card with piece that broke off.

So much for plans…

Wow it’s been about 3 months since I have posted, and reading my last post I was so optimistic about the winter ending and had all these plans that never materialized. Most of my plans did not come about because of cash flow, and my truck breaking down 2 times. I have had to put over $1000 into my truck for wheel bearings, breaks, u-joints, stabilizer bar and it’s not even over yet but it drives safe anyway. So with not having my truck and all my spare money going into fixing it, non of my plans became reality. My fence is not up but I can get about 400 or so feet of old farm field fence for free I just have to go about 100 or so miles to get it. And I need my truck running for that, anyway about all I have been doing is trying to stay out of the heat, gaming, puttering around the yard and well just the everyday stuff that comes up. I have also moved my entire house around because this past winter I froze because I burn wood and the room that I had my woodstove in had 12′ ceiling’s so all the heat went up to the ceiling. So I have been moving my furniture around and arranging my house to the “other” side of my house. I have a mobile home with an addition on each side of it so it is more house than mobile home, I have moved to the older addition which has only about an 8′ normal ceiling and most of the common areas are also in this addition like the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room. I should be much warmer this winter because of this rearranging of my living space. I have also been playing the 20th Anniversary Final Fantasy on the PSP and have been really into it. I have the BradyGames Official Strategy Guide and have been really getting the full impact out of this game. I have been trying to just play a few games at a time so I can get into each more and not just skim through and not even appreciate the game. I have purchased a few game guides for some of the PSP games that I have and will add more about them later, I am trying to play catch up with this blog in this post so I am just hitting on most of the things that I have been doing. I now have 10 cats because my 2 females had kittens before I could get them fixed. I will have a post all about my cats at a later time, like I said I am just catching up. So I will end this post for now and hopefully post more often, both for anyone who cares to read my blog and for me. I like to look back on my blog posts and see what I was thinking and/or doing when I wrote them. I guess that’s what most people do with a personal blog, I am kind of new to the blogging thing so I am still learning about the reasons for posting or for not posting for that matter. Looking back on my last post in April all I could think of was So much for plans…

Keeping busy

I have not posted very much lately because I have been totally consumed with my new Nintendo DS. I learned of the “Homebrew” scene and bought me a “M3DS Real” Flash cart, if you want to find out what this is or want to read a great review check out this link: GBAtemp.net Basically what it is is a DS game cartridge that has a MicroSD card in it that you can load DS and GBA ROM’s on and play the games like you had the cartridge. I know that this might be considered wrong if you don’t own the game, but I am not going to go there in this post. I have got about 45 games on it at this time and have been trying all kinds of GBA and DS games. I really have been getting into playing the “Advance Wars” series and “Castlevania” series. You can also use the M3DS Real to play music, videos and view photos kind of like you can do with the PSP. If you are interested check out the link above. As far as the PSP I have been playing “Jeanne D’Arc” and “Field Commander” more than anything latly, but I would like to get back into “God of War: Chains of Olympus” if I could only get past “The Steed Shrine” level. I am at the beginning where the game save is and the “dial” on the floor and the 3 “arm” levers are located. I have went towards the large “face” on the other end of the walkway bridge, but I can’t figure out what to do or where to go from here. If anyone can help I would be grateful. I have also gotten me “Guitar Hero III” for the PS2 with the “Kramer” wireless guitar controller. I was playing my step daughters one day and on my way home I stopped and bought me the Guitar Hero III package and the “Guitar Hero” game (I thought they had the first GH). When I got playing mine I noticed that I was playing Guitar Hero III and not Guitar Hero (original) but oh well I now have the first and third one and I am sure that I will get the others as well. So yeah I have been keeping busy as far as gaming, and I have gotten outside a little and done a little work in the yard and on my home. But I just can’t wait to get back in my “Lazy-Boy” and back into one of my games. But it is getting nice out and I must get out of the house more, I have really gotten out of shape this winter. So me and my dog Gigabite are going to start hiking everyday a little at a time to get us both back into shape and ready for summer. I want to go hiking on some overnight hikes this summer so we have to get ready, damn I just putz around the yard a little and I am getting dizzy and out of breath. This is the worst shape I have ever been in, and I don’t like it. So I must get out of my Lazy-Boy a little more and head outside for some fresh air and exercise. That’s another thing I can’t wait for is the PSP GPS attachment. That will get me outside and hiking, then I can play a game, or watch a tech video or take some photos or video’s with the PSP when I am not hiking. Anyway that’s it for now, I don’t want to be up all night long and sleep until noon and miss the nice weather…er…no I can see by my little weather applet that it’s raining and supposed to rain most of the day so I guess I will get back to a game and fall asleep when ever I do it looks like it’s not going to be nice out today so I can just take my time getting up. But it’s supposed to be nice out Saturday high of 58, cool I think I just might go for a hike, get the leash Gigabite!

Great week for PSP games and demos.

This past week I got the PSP game, Jeanne D’Arc which I had overlooked a while back but don’t remember why. I had found some reviews on-line while I was doing a search for PSP RPG games. I had been playing Puzzle Quest and it had sparked and rekindled the RPG fan in me, so I wanted more for my PSP and PS2 and PC. Anyway Jeanne D’Arc looked like it might be good so I picked it up brought it home and have been playing it exclusively, I have dabbled in RPG’s on and off and I know that this one will have my attention for a long time. Jeanne D’Arc is really a great game and I would recommend it to anyone, I will put some links to the games that I talk about after the post if you want to check them out. I also found out that the PlayStation Store had the game demo download of “God of War: Chains of Olympus” and “Patapon” I have been waiting forever it seems for God of War: Chains of Olympus and read about the Demo that people got on UMD disk from somewhere on the net and wished that I could get my hands on it. Well it is almost March and God of War: Chains of Olympus is due to be released soon and now I get the demo, better late then never I guess. There is also a demo for the game Patapon at the PlayStation Store. This game is made by the same developers as “LocoRoco” and is a 2D rhythm type of game and from the game trailers it looks to be great fun. Well I now have my copy of Jeanne D’Arc and the God of War: Chains of Olympus and Patapon demos so I am going to get off my PC and check them out, it’s midnight and it looks like it’s going to be a long night of gaming oh yeah!

Links:
Jeanne D’Arc RPG game for the PSP, a must have for your collection.

PlayStation Store get the demo for God of War and Patapon for the PSP here.

So many games, so little time.

I just got another game today for my PSP’s, the new release from Konami “Silent Hill: Origins”. I seen the trailers and just had to have it, I know that it was released for the PS2 I believe and this one is a “prequel” to that one. But I have not ever played it or don’t know anything about it. Anyway I got to thinking and was wondering if other gamers are like me, in the way that I buy games as I get the cash to do so but I am busy in the middle of some other games at the time and these new games will sometimes still be in the shrink wrap for weeks or months until I get around to playing them. I find that I can only get into a few games at a time to give them my all and really appreciate the game and all the work that the developers put into it. At the moment I am playing:

1. Daxter

2. Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles

3. Syphon filter: Dark Mirror

And these but not as heavy as the 3 above:

4. Call of Duty: Roads to Victory

5. WipEout Pure

Now I am going to add the new one:

6. Silent Hill: Origins

And I have 13 more games waiting for me to get the time to play them, as it looks I will have enough games to play on the PSP for quite some time to come which is cool. And there are still more games that I want to add to my collection. The next major one to be released is:

God of War: Chains of Olympus

I must get this one the moment it comes out. I am just wondering am I “normal” in the way I buy all these games and save them until I get done with the current ones then I can devote my full attention to a new game? Or do most people get new games and play all of them at the same time? I think I am going to add this post to some forums to see whats up with the way I do this and is it average? Hmmm…. I am curious to see what others have to say, so please if anyone reads this please comment and let me know how you deal with a situation such as this. I look forward to hearing from anyone so please if you read this post a comment.

Castlevania The Dracula X Chronicles

I got this game for the PSP just about the day it came out 10/23/07. And I have been addicted to it big time. It is a very hard game, I am not a big time gamer so yeah I have a rough time with it and spend hours going over and over the same levels. I get to the end and it’s time to fight the “Boss” and damn if I don’t get killed and there I am back at the beginning of the level again. But I just can’t put the game down it’s great. For those of you who don’t know about it, I guess it has been around for a while on the older counsels. I have played a version of it on my Palm Zodiac with an emulator program called LJP. I think it was for the SNES, I never knew about it back when it first came out but having played the ROM on the emulator kind of got me into it. When I seen that it was coming out for the PSP I just had to get it and am I glad I did. There are 3 different games on the UMD disk, and I guess you unlock them as you play. I have been playing this game pretty steady for over 3 weeks and I am still olnly like 9% through the game but I don’t care I can tell this will be an all time great for me and I am sure for others also. Anyway I would recomend this game to anyone that has a PSP and would consider it a “must have” for your PSP collection. I will add more about my game play as I go through the game so maybe I can help somone through a tough spot. I have been looking on the web for a guide and came upon one through IGN but for some reason the PDF file is corrupt, I will mess with it more to get it working and hopefully get a little help with this game it is sure a challange. The reviews have been good and most of them say that it’s a very good game it’s an old school side scroller and the graphics are just great along with the cut sceens it sure does make the game interesting. I am just getting back into games and it has been a long time since I have gotten into a game this much, but it definatly has my attention. Well thats it I gotta get me a little more it before I call it a night, just maybe I can get to another level but I doubt it. But I just gotta try one more time before I call it a night!