The PlayStation Store has now been live for a little over 24 hours, with Sony earlier today updating the store again and offering users the promised ‘Welcome Back’ package. Now, just a few hours later and Sony has another massive update to the store, including a lot of price cuts for PlayStation users. Hit the jump for a full breakdown of the price cuts and new downloadable games. Let us know which entice you to click the download button in the comments section.
PlayStation Network
Eager PlayStation fans across the US and Europe were greeted to good news yesterday that the PlayStation Store was up and running. Even though PSN has been back up for nearly two weeks, Sony needed some additional time to sort the store itself out. Still, fans were wondering where the promised “Welcome Back” package which was set to include lots of free goodies and 2 games like,
- Dead Nation
- inFAMOUS
- LittleBigPlanet
- Super Stardust HD
- Wipeout HD + Fury
While PSP owners would get to pick two of the following:
- LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
- ModNation Racers
- Pursuit Force
- Killzone Liberation
Now, the mystery is no more as Sony has announced that the PlayStation Store ‘Welcome Back’ package is live and ready for both continents. All PS3 and PSP fans have to do is to bring up the store and navigate to the new link/banner that they will see in the store. Other things to look forward to are free movie rentals on the Movie side of the store. Of course, PlayStation Plus fans who pay a monthly fee for additional goodies and cloud game storage will also receive an extra 60 days on their subscription. Fans will have exactly a month to download the free content as the tab containing the free goodies will disappear on July 3rd, 2011.
It’s also been noted that some users are experiencing an issue where after they leave the store and revisit it again, they no longer see the free content. Well after the jump, we have an official fix for you so that you can once again access the free content. Also after the jump, you will find the full breakdown of the ‘Welcome Back’ offering from Sony. So what do you guys think about the free content? Do you like it? And if so, which titles have you or will you be downloading?
Sony and Sony Computer Entertainment have just announced the time table for the full return of PSN, including the PlayStation Store and Qriocity services in the Americas, Europe/PAL territories and Asia, excluding Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea and it couldn’t be coming at a better time, the end of this week. This means that by Friday, PSN will be back to its former glory and everything will back to as it was. End the end, just know that before E3, you can have full access to the following:
- Full functionality on PlayStation®Store
- In-game commerce
- Ability to redeem vouchers and codes Full functionality on Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity for PS3, PSP, VAIO and other PCs
- Full functionality on Media Go
“We have been conducting additional testing and further security verification of our commerce functions in order to bring the PlayStation Network completely back online so that our fans can again enjoy the first class entertainment experience they have come to love,” said Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation. “We appreciate the patience and support shown during this time.”
As we’ve previously reported, there is a large “Welcome Back” package awaiting for PlayStation fans which includes free games like LittleBigPlanet and Wipeout while all Qriocity customers will be receiving an additional 30 days of service, on top of the days of the outage.
Hit the jump as always for the official press release.
The PlayStation Network is set to go under maintenance today from 8am until approximately 5pm Pacific time. During the down time, Sony is looking to tweak and enhance registration, password reset and Account Management which means those services will be unavailable during the down time. According to Sony, although some users might have difficulty signing into PSN on the PS3 and to additional services like the PlayStation Blog, the majority of users should have no problem accessing the services, including playing online.
It also comes as no surprise that the PlayStation Store, therefor will not be returning today as it had been rumored in the past. Instead, Sony has gone on record and stated that their goal is to have the store up by the months end. Meaning, check it out next Tuesday folks.
I personally wouldn’t be surprised if this maintenance further has to do with the recent hacking incidents as Sony wants to test for any weaknesses in their system. A few down hours to test and beef up the system is a lot better then another major downtime. You can bet that ever since PSN came back up, that hackers have been doing their best to to try and exploit the system game.
Hit the jump for the official press release fro Sony. While you are there, let us know if you are experiencing any problems with PSN or if things are going smooth for you.
Updated:
Maintenance has now been completed and full PSN services have been restored to all web and console users.
Saturday night Phase 1 of Sony‘s long awaited database restoration was set into motion rolling out globally for all users, finally putting an end to the largest PSN outage to date effecting close 100 million PlayStation and Qriocity users.
As we now know the outage was thanks to an “external intrusion” where hackers were able to read users personal account information such as their credit-card numbers, address, postal code, and names. So what exactly is phase 1 of Sony‘s restoration.
Phase 1 of the restoration was a software update forcing users to change their account passwords from the PlayStation 3 system they had originally activated the account on. Along with new security for Sony servers.
The new security system was developed by Sony with the help of their outside security consultants in hopes of never repeating an outage such as this. The new security system will include the following:
- Advanced Technology Security System
- Increased Levels of Encryption
- Added Firewalls
- Earlier warning signals in the chance of another “External Intrusion”
As for those of you greedy guss’ out there the welcome back package was not launched with phase 1 of the restoration – Below are FAQs provided by the Sony PlayStation Blog
Q: So what exactly is working right now?
A: Sign-in for PlayStation Network and Qriocity (including the resetting of passwords), online gameplay for PS3 and PSP, playback of rental video content on PS3 (if within rental period), Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity on PS3 (for current subscribers), access to services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and MLB.tv, “Friends” category on PS3 (including Friends List, Chat Functionality, Trophy Comparison, etc), in-game leaderboards, and PlayStation Home.Q: I’m having trouble changing my password/I forgot which email I used on my account/I used a fake email to set up my account.
A: Click here for a set of tips on resetting your password. If you’ve gone through the process and are waiting for an email from us, please note that the very large number of requests has caused certain ISPs to slow the rate at which recipients get emails from us. Please be patient as the systems work through the backlog.Q: The PlayStation Store hasn’t updated since April 19th. When can I download digital games that were planned to be released since then?
A: To date, three Tuesday publishes were missed, which included items like Under Siege and the MotorStorm Apocalypse demo. Rest assured that you won’t miss any of this great content. To catch up on the large amount of material, we’ll be publishing to the PlayStation Store multiple times per week once commerce functionality is restored. We will update the PlayStation.Blog with information on timing of the Store restoration, as well as the full list of new content as each publish occurs.Q: How will PlayStation Plus members be affected by the PSN downtime? A number of games/items were slated to go live or come down on April 26th.
A: We will be picking back up with the PlayStation Plus content calendar where we left off to ensure that you won’t miss out on anything.Q: Sucker Punch has indicated that they will extend the inFAMOUS 2 beta. Any details?
A: Sucker Punch is evaluating extending the inFAMOUS 2 beta, as well as expanding its scope. Stay tuned for more details here in the coming days.Q: Is anything special planned for the SOCOM 4 multiplayer community?
A: Zipper will announce details on activities to re-engage fans of SOCOM 4 who have patiently waited to play online.Q: What about the Call of Duty: Black Ops Double XP weekend that was missed while PSN was down?
A: We have been in discussions with our friends at Treyarch, and they have ensured that all Call of Duty: Black Ops fans will get an extra Double XP event as soon as PSN comes back online. We don’t have details on timing just yet, but look forward to an announcement as soon as we have news.Q: How can I redeem the Welcome Back offer that was mentioned by Kazuo Hirai? What’s in it?
A: Hang tight – we’ll be announcing all the details soon.Q: How can I sign up for the Debix AllClear ID Plus protection announced last week?
A: More details are coming soon.Q: When will the PlayStation.Blog start talking about games again?
A: Tomorrow! Thank you for bearing with us as our role changed over the past few weeks. We’ll be once again talking games every day leading up to E3, which is just a few short weeks away
Chances are that for those of you who are eager to jump on your PlayStation 3 and play some online games or hang out in PlayStation Home will be able to do sometime this week. As we reported earlier, Sony is in the final stages of testing out the PSN network. Part of this will also be a new firmware that will be issued to all PS3 owners. Still, if the above does happen, it doesn’t mean that all services will be available.
Shigenori Yoshida, a Tokyo-based spokesman said that by May 31st, the company hopes to have full PSN and Qriocity services restored. At this point, it remains unclear as to what services might not be up and running but speculation can lead to such services as Qriocity, Folding@Home and PlayStation Store thought those remain our own personal guesses. Here is to hoping that Sony can indeed restore some PSN functionality this week but I would rather them take their time and do it right, as opposed to a rushed solution which could harm the company and the millions of users down the line again.
[Via Bloomberg]
As Sony continues to wrap up maintenance on PSN and Qriocity services, Sony President and CEO, Sir Howard Stringer has written an open letter to those who have been affected by this outage. Lets just remember that the real bad buys are the hackers and not Sony shall we?
The letter is after the jump.
Sony, via the PlayStation Blog has been feeding users updates on the status of the downed PSN (PlayStation Network) and Qriocity nearly from the beginning of this saga. Now, the company has some good news to announce for those eager to start playing online and streaming music. Sony and the PlayStation team have entered the “final stages of internal testing of the new system” which will lead to the restoration of PSN and Qriocity services.
Hit the jump for their full statement.
When I normally start off an article, I like to recap the past events that have taken place in order to give the readers a sense of past and direction for the article. However, covering the PSN fiasco really needs no introduction. What started off as users wondering why PSN was down was soon covered on the PlayStation Blog and a week later, had Katie Couric pondering how Sony would respond to all of this though I’m doubtful if Couric and most traditional journalists have a single clue as to what PSN really is.
Though I’m not surprised by it, I feel like it’s worth mentioning that I am disgusted. Every gaming website out there and non-gaming sites as well are simply doing what our pop culture, TMZ/Kotaku reporting outlets tend to do: come up with some catchy headline to bash the intended target in order to maximize their readership. Facts simply don’t mean much; instead, who can write the juciest, most angry piece they can to, in this case, burn Sony and PlayStation to the ground. To put things into perspective, it was reported again that SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) was just breached as well, with over 24 million accounts being hacked. How many of you can honestly say that you were also aware of the fact that the data was from 2007 and that none of the exposed card data was from U.S. subscribers? On top of that, only 900 of the 12,700 exposed cards were even active. Is this still a horrible situation for those potential 900 victims? Of course, but it’s sure a lot less scary than a headline which reads, “Sony Hacked Again. Another 24 Million Accounts Exposed!”. On top of that, with all the data breaches going on, people are still forgetting the fact that the credit card data was indeed encrypted and hacking into servers is one thing, while getting those informations is another thing. However, nobody wants to report that because it’s boring. Now some might point out and say that we are a Sony centric website and that we don’t want to bash Sony. Fair enough, let’s go along with the story that Sony is a evil giant corporation that only cares about itself, the fans, and buyers of its products.
Hit to jump for my full opinion.
Sony, Sony, Sony… It seems as though the worst has yet to come. Today marked the second class-action lawsuit filed against Sony (first Canadian suit). Canadians can thank their spokesperson Natasha Maksimovic, a Humber College student from Ontario who yesterday filed the lawsuit on behalf of about 1 million Canadian Sony users affected by the Sony PlayStation Network and Qriocity’s breach of security mid-April. The suit itself is due to the breach of privacy and negligence.
Hit the jump for the full story.
It goes without saying that the last two weeks have been a trying time for PlayStation fans and employees alike who we sometimes we forget are really taking the short end of the stick. Not only is their service down too, but they are getting the brunt of the frustration for an event that is not in their hands to control. I figured this was as good as anytime to point out like the previous article we ran that while PSN is down, your PlayStation 3 still has plenty to offer and entertain you with. Our previous article was mainly pointing out the PS3’s offline functionalities like Blu-ray movies, photos, and single player games. So what about those of you who want some more media via the web? Well I can indeed report that both Netflix and VUDU still function 100% without PSN. Though they will ask you to log into your PSN account, you can actually bypass that and enjoy the full offering from both services as they are not tied to PSN in any shape. All you need is a internet connection like before.
April 21, 2011 was the start of the massive PlayStation and Qriocity service outages, one day later its announced the outage was due to an External Intrusion widely speculated as being the product of the infamous hactavist group Anonymous. As days went by users took to social media sites to speak their frustration – lately its been all the more common to see speculation of compensation for the PlayStation and Qriocity users effected by the outage.
I’ve seen some pretty… I hate to say it but dumbass ideas such as “1 free game download, or at least $40 PSN store credit…” – most of those “dumbasses” are comparing this outage to the 2008 and Xbox LIVE outage in which users were compensated for their lost time… Lets stop right here and take a moment to shut up these fools – Xbox LIVE is a pay to play service which those users are paying monthly to play – are you paying monthly for the PlayStation Network or is it free? (Those users with PlayStation Plus and/or Qriocity service please disregard this)
With that being Sony announced in their latest blog update that their users WILL be compensated for the recent outage and their “Patience”, so thank you to all those who hadn’t went on a criticizing commenting online rampage you are the reason for this.
Hit the jump for the full offering of the “Welcome Back” package.
Now that we know what took place during the last week to have Sony shut down their PSN and Qriocity services, gamers have began to ask focus on specific questions like what would happen to their Trophies and Download lists. Sony has a released a new set of answers that should help shed a lot of light.
Q: Will our download history/friends list/settings be affected by the PSN downtime?
A: No, they will not.
Q: Will trophies that were earned in single-player offline games during the outage be intact when the service resumes?
A: These trophies are intact and will be re-synched when the network is once again operational.
Q: Will my PS+ cloud saves be retrievable?
A: Yes, once PSN is restored.
Q: What if we have a subscription to PS3 MMOs DC Universe Online or Free Realms? Will we get compensation for that?
A: From Sony Online Entertainment: “We apologize for any inconvenience players may have experienced as a result of the recent service interruption. As a global leader in online gaming, SOE is committed to delivering stable and entertaining games for players of all ages. To thank players for their patience, we will be hosting special events across our game portfolio. We are also working on a “make good” plan for players of the PS3 versions of DC Universe Online and Free Realms. Details will be available soon on the individual game websites and forums.”
Q: Will there be a goodwill gesture for the time we haven’t been able to utilize PSN/Qriocity?
A: We are currently evaluating ways to show appreciation for your extraordinary patience as we work to get these services back online.
[Via PlayStation Blog]
PlayStation Network and Qriocity users what you’ve feared most has come true – today Patrick Seybold Sr. Director, Corporate Communications & Social Media for Sony posted on the US PlayStation blog that before the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services went offline personal information such as Addresses, zip codes and purchase history were compromised.
We have discovered that between April 17 and April 19, 2011, certain PlayStation Network and Qriocity service user account information was compromised in connection with an illegal and unauthorized intrusion into our network.
Further on Patrick alerts all users that Sony will not contact you asking for any personally identifiable information such as your social security or credit card number. Its goes without saying that scams will be on the rise; therefor, PlayStation Network and Qriocity users are urged “to be especially aware of email, telephone, and postal mail scams that ask for personal or sensitive information”.
There is a bright side to this seemingly dark post – the team at Sony working on restoring the PlayStation and Qriocity “have a clear path to have PlayStation Network and Qriocity systems back online, and expect to restore some services within a week.”
It’s also important that when services are restored users change their passwords as well as look over recent account summary and monitor your credit reports – you want to make sure your account is secure still.
So to all those frustrated by the outage that have taken to the web to criticize Sony and the job they’ve done – to end this post here’s the final paragraph to the outage update, and please remember if Sony didn’t love their users they would offer a paid service like Xbox LIVE.
Sony takes information protection very seriously and will continue to work to ensure that additional measures are taken to protect personally identifiable information. Providing quality and secure entertainment services to our customers is our utmost priority. Please contact us at 1-800-345-7669 should you have any additional questions.
It seems for PlayStation gamers there’s no end to the now full week PlayStation Network outage. The PlayStation Network has over 70 million users that have taken to social media outlets to voice their frustration, which is not only due to the outage but the lack of updates from Sony regarding status of the PlayStation Network.
What has fed the flame is the lack of updates from Sony to its users – Sony has various social media outlets to communicate to their users whatever their need might be to; however, they’ve chosen to stick to their official PlayStation blogs (the Europe and US blog). Which would be acceptable had they posted updated more frequently than every 24-48 hours. Though that can’t be said for both blogs – after a little digging I’ve uncovered the difference in the European and US blog.
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