It's been laborious the past week to seek out any gaming news that hasn't been dominated by the hacking of the PlayStation Network.
Things have developed over the weekend, however I promise this may be the last blog on the PlayStation Network outage - unless, of course, one thing else catastrophic happens to it in the week.
Sony has start up overnight saying that partial PSN services can resume in the week (except for the PlayStation Store, that will not come up till the top of the month) and has promised that the new-and-improved PSN can supply far better security and information protection. Well, PS3 users would expect that, right?
Sony has said the partial PSN can embody restoration of on-line game-play across the PS3 and PlayStation Portable systems, together with titles requiring on-line verification and downloaded games, access to the Qriocity music download service for existing subscribers, access to account management and password reset and access to PlayStation Home.
Last week, Sony came below hearth for the means it's handled the breach and also the length of your time it took to notify PS3 account holders that private details might are compromised - and rightly therefore - and yesterday, Kazuo Hirai, govt deputy president of Sony Corporation, said: "We have learned lessons along the means concerning the valued relationship with our shoppers, and to that finish, we'll be launching a client appreciation programme for registered shoppers as how of expressing our gratitude for his or her loyalty throughout this network downtime, as we have a tendency to work even tougher to revive and regain their trust in us and our services."
Sony hasn't directly said sorry anywhere however the statement from Hirai is that the company's means of apologising for things, and it's initiating one thing referred to as the "Welcome Back" programme that, among different things, can embody every territory providing selected PlayStation content for complimentary download and every one existing PlayStation Network customers are going to be given a 30-day free membership to the PlayStation and premium service (existing PlayStation and members can get an extra 30-days free membership). No word from Sony - either regionally or internationally - what the free downloadable content are going to be. If you wish additional info head here.
Personally, assume i believe Sony has handled the complete think incredibly poorly and it's attending to have to be compelled to work very laborious to repair its name among gamers as a results of this debacle. Here's an issue for PlayStation users: how does one suppose Sony handled the complete PSN hack and wouldn't it have received a "Could do better" on its report card?
In non-Sony-related news, tomorrow night I've got an interview with British game designer Peter Molyneux pencilled in and as there isn't any new game returning from him (apart from the Pc version of Fable 3) it sounds like it will simply be a general profile piece concerning him. I do, however, conceive to raise him whether or not he'd ever prefer to revisit a number of his past games, together with Sydnicate. Any queries you would be keen on behalf of me to place to Molyneux?