Twenty four days since hackers found their way into the PSN servers, bringing the network crashing down around them, the Japanese electronics giant has finally restored it's online services to a majority of users. The big question though, is whether Sony's image has suffered to the point that they may never recover (in the games market at least).
It's not the first time that a major console has had it's online features suspended. Microsoft had to take Xbox Live offline for 24 hours in 2008 in preparation for the "New Xbox Experience" and also suffered outages just prior to Christmas 2007. The big difference between these outages and the one recently suffered by the PSN however is, in the case of Microsoft, the problem was quickly remedied and didn't come off the back of a bunch of hackers getting hold of users personal information.
The damage to Sony and the Playstation's reputation should not be underestimated. Although the PSN is free for all to use, those who use it expect their details to be secure. If you can't put your trust in a consoles security how can you bring yourself to own it? Worse still is that people's credit card information may have been compromised and while all this news came out, Sony appeared to be dilly dallying over what to do.
The Welcome Back program that Sony announced on their blog is commendable. A free month of Playstation Plus will be an interesting experience for those of us who are yet to subscribe to it, While those who have will get two months gratis. A free film weekend is planned at some point, and although you question what they have to lose in terms of revenue when you see the 5 games available to users in the UK, the fact remains that you will get two of these for free.
Infamous
Little Big Planet
Ratchet and Clank Future:Quest for Booty (Super Stardust HD in Germany and United States)
Wipeout HD Fury
Dead Nation.
Whether or not these games appeal to the people that have been so inconvenienced by the PSN outage remains to be seen. Infamous and LBP are likely already owned by a majority of PS3 owners, so that effectively takes the selection down to two of three games. But hey, they're free!
Putting this Welcome Back program to one side for the time being though, This could hardly have come at a worse time for Sony. Nintendo recently announced the existence of a new console under development which appears to be aimed at regaining the hardcore audience they effectively lost when they released the Wii in 2006. Xbox 360 held a free online weekend just as the PSN outages bit, showing that they had a secure and reliable network and giving everyone a free taste of it just at the right time. It's my belief that Microsoft's console has had the premiere online gaming network for some time now due to the level of investment they can afford it. Sony may have sat back to begin with since the PSN was until recently free for all. They can hardly afford to do so now. At this point any perceived complacency from Sony by the gaming community could completely kill off the Playstation brand with the hardcore community.
There's one other question that this raises. Has this all caused so much trouble for Sony that they would consider burying the Playstation name altogether and start anew with their next console? I doubt it somehow. Even with all the negative mainstream news stories circulating about their machine, i think Sony realise they have a brand in the Playstation that will sell purely on name recognition alone.
Given all of the bad publicity Sony has had for the past three weeks it seems unlikely, perhaps even perverse that the number of PS3's sold during the PSN debacle should have increased rather than fallen. All publicity is good publicity it seems. Maybe the world doesn't care about online gaming, but they should still care about who can get hold of their details...
