PSN Hacked: The Return

Peter Chapman 88 Comments

There can’t be many people who haven’t heard about the current PlayStation Network woes. It’s a hugely negative story for PlayStation which is getting attention from national mainstream press and causing competitors to gloat.

We tried to lighten the mood slightly with a few clumsy jokes on Friday but now it’s three days later and the PSN still hasn’t risen. We’re worried you might be getting a bit too frustrated and unhappy so we thought we’d look at what improvements might be implemented while Sony has its servers switched off.

Increased security. This one is a certainty, Sony haven’t given much information about what they’re doing and this is the one thing they’ve been clear about. The new PSN will be stronger and more resilient to the kind of attacks which brought the old PSN down. More security is always a good thing, as long as it doesn’t get in the way of actually using the service.

More servers. This is very possible and would definitely be welcomed. While the PSN is down, they could be adding to their servers so that capacity is increased and the whole thing works more smoothly in the future. This attack on the PSN might be the thing that finally gets us stable multiplayer launch weekends on the beautiful black box along with even faster download speeds and updates that are quick enough to largely silence those that constantly complain about their frequency.

New features. People have taken the opportunity to postulate that Sony might be using the down time to pack in new features – specifically, cross game chat – to the Network services. We think that this is unlikely. It is possible, however, that newly strengthened servers might be better able to handle increased traffic and that might make new features more likely in the near future. We would expect to see this sort of thing in a big firmware update at a high point in the media calendar – like around E3 time.

Compensation. Like it or not, this situation has been a PR disaster for Sony. We’re fairly sure that down time on the network is accounted for when you sign up but customers still have a right to be disappointed that a service they pay for (be it via the initial console purchase, PS+, PSN games that require authentication to run or third party partnerships like LoveFilm, MLB.com, etc) has been missing for so long. One way Sony could help calm the growing outrage is to give something away. To be fair, PlayStation have been very generous with their PS+ service and some heavy discounting recently so we think this is very likely. What they offer their loyal fans is a subject of pure conjecture but we would expect their generosity to be on full display fairly soon after the network hums back into life.

So there we have it, this is all pure speculation at this point but it’s better to speculate on positives than to dwell on the negatives, right? What would you like to see from the new, improved PlayStation Network when it comes back on?

 

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88 Comments

  1. OtherOS. Minds would be blown.

    • lol & yes they would

    • Lol! I would love that if it led to a revival of ppc development for linux… *sigh*..

  2. Free beer! That’s guaranteed to make me forgive and forget. And if they give me enough I’ll end up saying “You’re my bestest mate ever Sony, I love you” before passing out.

    • I heard they are refunding 20% of your online fees as PSN store credit.

      Seriously, Microsoft have NOTHING to gloat about, their downtime record is a unparralled 15 days without Xbox Live, and that’s a PAID FOR service.

      People including cc_star need to get some perspective, and lose the selective memory…

      http://www.engadget.com/2008/01/03/xbox-live-outage-day-13-still-up-and-down-still-preventing-fu/

      • Here here. this is a drop in the ocean compared to xbox.

      • We ALL know what the real deal here is. Microsoft have the gaming industry in their pocket, held to random by advertising budgets.

        Nobody dare criticise Microsoft for 15 day Xbox Live outages for fear of losing all their advertising budgets (the ONLY source of income for sites like this). Because Sony spend much less on advertising, sites will always thus pander to the highest bidder.

        This is WHY Xbox Live outages get mostly swept under the reporting carpet and sites are always quick to jump on Sony for anything they can.

        Here is todays news, there is NO sites without bias, there is no television shows without bias, there is hardly anywhere left where you can get truely unbiased information anymore. Even the BBC’s Tech reporting is pretty biased (you only have to look at their pathetic Apple reporting to see this).

        It’s a very sad state of affairs, and there is no way to cure it. The company with the most money can afford to be the biggest bully.

      • CCRocker raises a few decent points.

      • so that would only make the people who pay for DC universe Online happy then? I can’t think of any other online fees needed for PSN

      • Sorry clashcityrocker, that is just absolute nonsense. MS does not pay most of the advertising costs for sites such as this at all, and even if they did that would make absolutely no difference. That just isn’t how things work.

        People arent purposely kicking Sony while they are down, they are criticising them which tries to bring some sense to the wave of blind Sony supporters who have come out of the wood work.

      • Yeah, but that was 4 years ago and MS learnt from their hugly misfortune. Apparently Sony didn’t care to take note.

  3. Cake. Failing that, a free download of something or other. Honestly,I would prefer cake tho ;)

    • And there’s no point crying over every mistake;
      You just keep on trying til you run out of cake.
      And the science gets done and you make a neat gun
      For the people who are still alive.

      • Now these points of data make a beautiful line
        And we’re out of beta, we’re releasing on time
        So I’m GLaD I got burned, think of all the things we learned
        For the people who are still alive

      • Well here we are again…

      • Maybe you’ll find someone else
        To help you?
        Maybe Black Mesa?
        That was a joke! haha!! fat chance!!
        Anyway, this cake is great,
        It’s so delicious and moist!

      • For those without their cake
        it is hard to imagine life
        without it, we would die
        PSN is down
        i’m not even angry
        just want cake
        So i am still alive

      • That doesn’t even rhyme

      • i know, i accidently pressed submit when i i was still typing it. Blasted built in touchpad.:(

  4. Japan get daily updates and we dont show how much SCEE care about their customers

    new features is hardly likely better security yes more servers possibly compensation has to be

  5. It will rise again pentecost sunday.. :P

    Anyway. I don’t expect new feutures, I think Sony has been focused primarily on security. I expect a major update to be shown at E3 though.

    A compensation is expected though. While this might be for the greater good and PSN is a “free” service, PSN is still a huge selling point when buying a PS3 (which is more expensive), plus every freaking game brags about PSN features…

  6. As I mentioned yesterday I don’t think Sony /have/ to compensate people for the lack of multiplayer gaming (other than goodwill gestures from a PR point of view), as its already included in the price its a different scenario to MS giving free games away when Live went down a couple of years ago, which is obviously an additional cost.

    However, some people are paying for PSN linked services they can’t use and Sony really do need to do something over & above an apology for them.

    Obviously from a PR point of view, nearly all companies provide a good will gesture should something go wrong outside the customers control, so it would be very surprising should Sony not follow the corporate norm for all their customers.

    • I don’t agree. PSN might be free, but it’s a vital part of the system. A system you have bought and payed a higher price then the competition.

      Also when you buy PS3 games with multiplayer, you expect a working multiplayer, that’s part of the price. If the PSN network continues to be this unstable, then it’s time to lower the price on PS3 games.

      • You expect it, but somewhere in that ToS you agree to when you sign up to PSN in the first place, there will be a sentence or two that will say that maintenance can happen at any time for any length of time and with any amount of notice that Sony fancies providing.

      • I don’t think we are talking about what Sony must do according to law, but what they should do, to apologize to their customers.

    • people who have subscribed to services like PS+ and Lovefilm ect.. should no doubt get some sort of compensation. All be it a small bit (Say, more stuff on offer or free next PS+ update?), as just ignoring it and acting as if nothing has happened would be worse than the media blackout that they’ve left us in up to now.

      Sort it Sony.

      • so what your saying is that ONLY people who have PS+ should have some sort of compensation ?

        everyone should get some sort of compensation not just PS+ subscribers you know

      • Maybe, but these people have subsidised their PSN and are dirsctly missing out on what they pay for. Yes everyone has payed for it when they bought the console but these are additions.

      • PS+ subscribers should get compensation+ ;)

    • I should expect something from them! I have three subscriptions on psn

  7. i think these re pretty good speculations… specially the more servers and new features specs… do not think that we will be getting CGC in this update either… i don’t think we’ll ever be seeing CGC on the PS3….

  8. XGC…. eh?.. surely minds will explode, gamers will scream in orgasm, the birds & trees will sing and the world will just go meh still no universal in game music.

  9. As long as they get it fixed properly, I’m not sure I’m that worried! Sure I’ve missed mp but I’ve had a great weekend on socom 4 sp.
    Compensation? As a plusser, I get plenty of freebies anyway. Maybe a nice cake?

    • See the comments above in relation to cake :D

  10. I dont think we’ll see any new features, i dont think Sony was expecting an Outage this big, and it seems that they are having to do some mayor rebuilding of the Network, i think the last thing they may be thinking about is adding more features.

    As for Compensation, well im a PS+ subscriber, only a 3 month sub for the time being, im a little cheesed of that i put money into Sony and this happens, but thats life, i also just got a new PS3 last week so i have got no downloaded games installed on it either, but i dont expect any sort of gift from Sony, i dont mind though.

    The first 2 you mentioned seem most likely, and it would make more sense for Sony to concentrate on these the most.

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