PlayStation NotWork

While it's hardly a surprise, Sony wants you to know that it is very aware of hackers. Very, very aware. The company promises "hyper vigilance" for the PlayStation Network looking forward.

In an interview with Computer and Videogames, Sony Europe's Andrew House said April's hacking attack (hattack) "taught Sony -- and many other companies -- that you have to adopt a stance of hyper vigilance."

"We are genuinely humbled and extremely grateful to those consumers who have continued to put their trust in us," House said. "That's a responsibility we now take even more seriously than we did before. We'll try our absolute best to try and make our system as secure as we possibly can."

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Jack Tretton, CEO and President of Sony Computer Entertainment America, issued a blanket mea culpa to PSN users and publishing partners for the shutdown brought on by the hacking incident. 

Although PSN started to get back online in May it appears it is still not 100% worldwide. 

The PSN Welcome Back Program kicked off today but not without a hitch. Many gamers are reporting problems when trying to redeem their free games. The European PlayStation blog has acknowledged some gamers are having issues downoading their games. They recommend logging into your PlayStation Network account and choose Account Management > Transaction Management > Services List. From here choose " “PlayStation Network Promotions” and select "PS3 Free Games" or "PSP Free Games." Click "Select Content." This, in theory, will take you back to PlayStation Store to choose your games again.

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The PSN Welcome Back Program launched today. Sony intends to use the Welcome Back Program as a way to thank its customers for their patience and loyalty. The PSN Welcome Back Program is available to all PSN members who signed up for accounts before the PSN outage on April 20, 2011, which is just about everyone who has a PSN account since you couldn't make one while the PSN was down. Users will get to choose two games for the PS3 and two games for the PSP.

• NEWS: PlayStation Network To Be Fully Restored This Week

PS3 Games:

• Dead Nation
• inFAMOUS
• LittleBigPlanet
• Super Stardust HD
• Wipeout HD + Fury

PSP Games:

• LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
• ModNation Racers
• Pursuit Force
• Killzone Liberation

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Good news, gaming world: According to Sony, The PlayStation Network will be fully restored today in America and Europe, ending our long international nightmare! Qriocity, the music service, is back up too. According to Sony:

Details of "Welcome Back" package program offered to all registered PlayStation Network* and Qriocity account services will be announced from each region.

The PlayStation Store should be up and working for most of you right now, for the first time in many weeks, so go check it out. There's a ton of cool stuff to download and check out, like a Wizardry demo, Lego Pirates of the Carribean demo, a bunch of of Rock Band tracks, old school games like Bonk's Adventure and just a metric crap-ton of awesome. Check it out on the PlayStation's Blog.

E3 means rumors! Predictions! Speculations! With that in mind, this is it. The home stretch. Final countdown. Last frame. End boss. E3 2011 is right around the corner at this point, so close that we can almost reach out and touch it. Are you ready? G4 is going to be blasting the entire show onto your eyeballs and into your earholes, so we hope you're prepared. Starting on Monday and lasting through the entire week, keep it tuned to G4. 

But because E3 brings all those game reveals, trailers, previews, and more, that also sparks an entire wildfire of rumors and predictions. So on this episode of Feedback, Adam, Morgan, Eric, and myself talk about the stuff we don't know and gaze into the crystal ball of possibility. Of course, we do know some new things about games like StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, Call of Duty Elite, and more. So we talk about that stuff, and the ethereal! Check it out! 

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According to Sony, the PlayStation Network will be fully restored this week all over the world. In the United States, that means the return of the PlayStation Store, in-game commerce, and the ability to redeem codes and coupons, so gamers will finally get the chance to redeem the make-good gifts Sony promises us in recognition of our inconvenience, as well as download demos and videos.

Sony promises that the fully restored PSN will include considerable security enhancements to the network infrastructure, as well as "conducted testing of the payment process and commerce functions."

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The PSN has begun a phased restoration process in Japan and other Asian countries including Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand. The plan to restore the PlayStation Network and Qriocity Services in Asia is similar to the one already being used in America and Europe. An identity theft protection program will be offered too customers in Asian territories too.

Phase one of the PSN restoration will include:

• The ability to sign-in for PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, including the resetting of passwords
• Restoration of online game-play across PS3 and PSP
• Friends' category on PS3, including Friends List, Chat Functionality, Trophy Comparison, etc
• PlayStation Home
• Access to other network features on services such as torne

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The thing about internet-rumors is they are very often wrong. For instance, the rumor that we reported last week, that said the PlayStation Store was going to be open on the 24th. Much like reports of the end of the world, it didn't happen, and it looks like it's not going to happen today.

Instead of the return of the PSN Store, you'll get some limited lack of functions between now and approximately 5pm Pacific. The majority of PSN users should still be able to play online, but Registration and Account Management will be inaccessible, including the password reset process.

Here's the official quote from Sony on when the PlayStation Store will come back:

"For those asking about the PlayStation Store, we’re still targeting restoration of all services by the end of this month. Contrary to reports, the Store will not be publishing today."

Source: PlayStation Blog

According to Sony, the shutdown of the PlayStation Network will cost the company an estimated $171 Million. The word comes by way of a revised earnings statement Sony issued in advance of their Thursday earnings report.

According to the company, the breakdown of PSN Network Outage expenses is as follows:

• The current estimated cost of the personal information theft protection program for customers. "This program includes a set amount of insurance to cover a certain amount of identity theft losses that may be incurred by our customers in certain regions within a set period with respect to misuse of their personal information."
• Costs of welcome back programs that offer customers certain services (such as games, music and videos) for free
• Customer support costs
• Network security enhancement costs
• Legal and expert costs
• The impact on our profits due to a possible future revenue decrease.

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According to a report from The Wall Street Journal there was an attack on Sony Japan's Internet service provider So-Net  where someone stole about 100,000 yen ($1,225) of virtual points from users who have been advised to - surprise! - change their passwords.

Between the initial, crippling PlayStation Network intrusion, followed soon by the PSN password reset exploit, the U.S. Federal government inquiries, the Japanese government embargoes thanks to Sony security practices, and now a new intrusion on Sony Japan's Internet service provider So-Net, things are just not going well.

• NEWS: PlayStation Store To Return On May 24?

Sony have issued a somewhat reassuring statement that hey, at least this time wasn't quite so bad:

"At this point in our investigations, we have not confirmed any data leakage. We have not found any sign of a possibility that a third party has obtained members’ names, address, birth dates and phone numbers," So-Net reps said. Also keep in mind this does not affect U.S. Sony customers.

Source: The Wall Street Journal

According to a report on industry blog Gamasutra, the PlayStation Store will be returning in less than a week. Gamasutra's source is a memo sent to developer that says, barring any further problems, the Store will be back up on May 24, which would mean PSN users chould get to claim their "make-good" gifts from Sony before June

According to the memo, the Store will be publishing two updates per week in order to catch up with the PSN downtime schedule.

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UPDATED 11:25am PST: Sony's Patrick Seybold just posted the following update on the official PlaStation Blog:

"We temporarily took down the PSN and Qriocity password reset page. Contrary to some reports, there was no hack involved. In the process of resetting of passwords there was a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed. Consumers who haven’t reset their passwords for PSN are still encouraged to do so directly on their PS3. Otherwise, they can continue to do so via the website as soon as we bring that site back up."

Original story follows:

Sony’s PlayStation Network has once again been compromised after an exploit was discovered in the newly launched password reset system that was recently brought online as part of Sony’s PSN relaunch.

According to Eurogamer, cyber attackers were able to use this exploit to change user passwords and potentially compromise user accounts. In order to do so, hackers would need to know a user’s E-mail address and date of birth, which would normally be a bit of a stumbling block, but as millions of PSN users are intimately aware, these pieces of information were among those that were stolen during the historic PSN attack that took place last month.

To prevent further damage, Sony has pulled the plug on PSN sign-in portals across its various websites, including PlayStation.com and Qriocity.com, however, as Sony told Eurogamer, “In the meantime you will still be able to sign into PSN via your PlayStation 3 and PSP devices to connect to game services and view Trophy/Friends information.”

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Yesterday, we detailed the free gifts PSN users will be getting for the network downtime they suffered when the network went down. It didn't take long for some gamers to express their displeasure in the offers, with many saying that the offer of a choice of LittleBigPlanet, InFamous or some downloadable games doesn't make up for the inconvience.

Sony responds like this: "I'm really sorry that there is nothing there that you want," SCEE's Nick Caplin wrote on the PlayStation Blog. "We've tried really hard to put together a list of high quality BD games rather than simply offering cheaper PSN titles. The average Metacritic rating for these games is over 84%, so these are high quality games. Unfortunately with a user base of 77 million people, it is really hard to offer something for everyone."

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Now that the PlayStation Network is mostly restored, Sony has revealed its "make good" offer to consumers, so pull yourself out of that multiplayer game on the PSN for a minute and receive your free stuff! The offer includes games, movies, PlayStation Plus access and free stuff for PlayStation Home.

Let's start with the games: Sony is giving PlayStation 3 users the choice of two of the following titles, available  for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored. They can be kept forever:

• Dead Nation
• inFAMOUS
• LittleBigPlanet
• Super Stardust HD
• Wipeout HD + Fury

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