It's alive!
Just like Jesus and zombies, PSN has risen from the dead! In a press conference late last night, Sony's Executive Deputy President Kazuo Hirai informed the world that this week PSN will return with some functionality, including friends lists, account management options and, most importantly, online gameplay. The Playstation Store will still be down, but they expect it to be back in full swing by the end of the month.
It's been a tumultuous two weeks for Playstation and its fans. Lets face it, Sony f'ed up and this will definitely damper the "year of the Playstation." I don't blame them for getting hacked. NOTHING is really safe and if someone wants to hack something, eventually they'll get in if they have the skill and time. I think the real beef lies in the way Sony handled this entire fiasco, waiting several days after the initial intrusion to inform users that our credit information might have been compromised. I understand the desire to not cause a panic if they weren't 100% sure, but I think sparse blog posts really didn't make anyone feel they were forthcoming with what they knew. It was a gamble that didn't pay off and now they must begin to regain all the momentum and trust their system had going for it.
The real mystery is how this hiccup is going to affect Playstation going forward. There have been surveys and anonymous employee talk from Gamestop that a growing number of gamers are trading in their PS3s for 360s, but these reports are far from conclusive. I'm sure sales will drop and software numbers will take a tumble, but to what extent won't be known for a few months, and anyone claiming otherwise is pulling your chain. My prediction is that sales will drop but then slowly pick up again as the months pass by. Years from now, we'll always talk about the PSN gaff, but it won't devastate the system like some internet columns are predicting. If the 360 can get past the RROD issue, I think Playstation can get past this.
I've been a Playstation customer since PS1 and, although I'm definitely disappointed by all this, I don't think my purchasing trust in them has been greatly altered. It was annoying to have to get a new credit card and change my password for a few things since I used the same log in on PSN for other things, but nothing was THAT inconvenient and it served as a wake up call that I should be doing more to protect my identity online. I'm sure a lot of people aren't going to store their credit information on PSN when it returns on Tuesday, but the more that I think about it, its probably safer than ever. What are the odds that, after all this, the network gets hacked again?
I do appreciate that Sony's offering some free stuff for gamers as a way to say, "sorry we dicked you over." I'm a Playstation Plus member and its nice to see that, because I lost two weeks of a service I payed for, I'll get a month free as compensation. If they could throw in a free downloadable game, which they've hinted at, I think that would certainly be enough to win me back in their good graces.
I guess, in the end, while I wouldn't blame gamers for switching over because of this incident, I won't be one of them. I stuck with Playstation all these years because, in the end, I feel they provide the best gaming experience out of the three platforms and this incident doesn't really change that. Infamous 2, Uncharted 3, Twisted Metal, as well as all the other multiplatform gems are still on their way. It was annoying not being able to play online or sync my trophies or any of the other stuff Playstation is supposed to do but, hey, sometimes it hits the fan.
No sweat, Sony. Sometimes you just down right piss me off. But I still got your back.
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