FIVE BELOW GAMING CHALLENGE!

It can be expensive trying to pick up items for your game room, whether we're talking about gaming accessories, or accessories to be able to film content. Within the last year, a Five Below opened within about 20 minutes of me, and I decided to check out and see if there was anything there I could grab to help us with future video production.

My original reason for going there was I had seen a set of $20 Joy-Cons for the Nintendo Switch & Switch OLED there in the past and I wanted to pick a set up to review. I also wanted to check and see if they had some LED light strips that I could possibly use for making my LED light boxes, another green screen backdrop, and a few other things. I'd seen all of them on their website and it indicated that I could order them for pickup.

So the idea of Five Below is that most items are around $5 or less. With inflation that's getting harder to do! I did find a number of items. Once in the store, I headed back to their technology section and was disappointed that the Joy-Cons I went to the store for were nowhere to be found. They had also listed a monitor stand with RGB lights and extra USB ports on it, this was also MIA. Well, two strikes. But I did manage to find a few really cool things.

#YouTube #Shorts are definitely a thing, as you can see by this episode here, and I shoot most of those with my phone. If I'm out in the wild that's not an issue, but down in the studio, my lighting can be either harsh or poor. They had a selfie ring light with a cell phone holder for $5.55, which I snagged. I also grabbed a single strip of RGB LED lights, also for $5, is I will experiment to see if this is something I can repurpose for making my LED light boxes

The final two things I picked up were a set of desktop gaming mats. One of them was themed with the original Super Mario Bros, and it looked absolutely brilliant. It shows the title screen and parts of the first level of the mushroom kingdom. The second one I picked up featured a Mario Kart theme, with all the major characters and levels represented. The Super Mario Brothers one will stay in my studio on my desk, while I have taken the Mario Kart ones to my office, and is on my desk there.

I was bummed five below did not have the Joy-Cons or the green screen I was looking for, but I was able to find a number of other options. They also had things like switch game storage racks, tons of copies of Destiny 2, and more. They won't be my first choice when hunting for accessories, but they certainly will be a choice when hunting for accessories.

#shorts30