Sony PSN Comes in Full Restoration on Wednesday

Sony’s PlayStation Network will end its 11-week outage, as its service comes in complete restoration in Japan this Wednesday. Last April 20, Sony PSN and Qriocity experienced a hack attack, which brought 77 million users’ private information in jeopardy and cost the company for almost $70 million.

The company also announced a couple of deadline recovery for the past months, including the April 21 statement that it can be a day or two before PlayStation Network gets fully restored. Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s Executive Deputy President, promised the services’ restoration by the end of the week on May 1. Then on May 14, Sony announced the initial phase of PSN’s resumption. The latest announcement was made on May 30, wherein the company promised a full restoration by the end of the week.

However, the Sony PlayStation Network subscribers can only hope that this will be the company’s last announcement of complete restoration. In addition to this, the Welcome Back program was also extended until 12:00 pm today.

Sony Gives Away Free Games for All After PSN Store Restoration

With the final step of fully restoring the PlayStation Network, Sony has announced that PlayStation Store service will be restored this week. Together with this, the Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity will also be back in full functionality. Sony now implements security enhancements to the network, and tested the PSN Store’s commerce functions.

In relation to this, customers don’t have to wait longer to have their ‘Welcome Back’ packages from Sony. All PSN subscribers will get two free games and 30 free days of PlayStation Plus, while Music Unlimited Premium Trial subscription members will receive an additional 30 days of free premium subscription. Existing Music Unlimited Premium/Basic members, on the other hand, will get additional 30 days. PlayStation Home will provide 100 free virtual items as a ‘welcome back,’ and Sony will be making a selection of movie rental titles available for PSN customers for one week.

Further details for Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea as well as the remaining services on Qriocity will be announced once they become available. So for more update, keep it posted here at GADG.

Sony PSN: Fully Restored by Weekend

Sony confirmed that it will restore the PlayStation Network to full functionality this weekend for America, Europe, PAL territories and Asia. The Sony PSN and other associated services were taken offline following the security breach that occurred last month. Some services were resumed recently, but the company will re-enable the remaining functionality on weekend — including the PlayStation Store and the capability to redeem vouchers and game codes. Media-go and in-game purchase will also be back in the business.

However, these services won’t be restored to selected areas like Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea soon. Sony will offer welcome back gifts to all PlayStation Network and Qriocity members. The loot includes two free PS3 games and time usage of PlayStation Plus system.

PSN’s Password Reset Vulnerability, Unveiled

After last month’s security breach at Sony’s PlayStation Network, the whole system is now in full function again. However, further password reset vulnerabilities has been revealed.

That said, Sony was forced to shut down some websites to fix the problem — which could enable hackers to change a user password and gain access to their account. The vulnerability is based on the password reset system, which needs the PSN account’s email address and the user’s date of birth.

Sony Details the PSN Welcome Back Package

Following Sony PSN’s lenthy outage, the company has detailed its Welcome Back package in the hopes that it will appease the affected subscribers of the online service.

Will these bunch of goodies be enough to convince you that the PSN is now back, or would you rather go for the Xbox 360?

See the Welcome Back package’s complete details after the skip.

Sony Revives its PlayStation Network

Last Saturday, Sony exec Kaz Hirai announced over a video message that Sony is the move to restore the damages on its Playstation Network and other services.

In order to log on to PSN, users will be asked to download a firmware update and alter their passwords. Other services offered by PS3 like Hulu, Vudu and MLB will be back to normal soon. Sony will also provide identity theft protection for U.S. PSN users.

PSN has been inactive for almost a month now. Sony admitted to the public that their system had been hacked which led them to shut down the network.

Sony promised to give out rewards for compromised PS3 players. Many are hoping that these upgrades will do its purpose of protecting secured data.

Check out the video message of Kaz Hirai after the skip.

PSN Downtime: Costs Millions of Dollars for Capcom

According to Street Fighter game developer, Capcom, the continued PlayStation Network downtime costs publishers and developers hundreds of thousands. Moreover, the current situation puts future projects at risk. Capcom’s senior vice president, Christian Svensson, revealed at the Capcom Unity forums that the PSN blackout is costing the company a large amount of money.

Sony cleared out yesterday that the PSN and its related services may not be fully restored until the end of May.

Sony Disputes May 31 Deadline for PSN Restoration Report

Following the announcement that Sony will have its ‘phased restoration‘ for the PlayStation Network last week, it seems that nothing really happened. The past seven days just came and went, and the PSN services are still are down. So when will Sony bring back the PSN online? Only the company knows.

As of today, the company still doesn’t have an established timeline as to when its services will be online again. However, Sony spokesperson – Shigenori Yoshida – said that everything should be restored by the end of May. Bloomberg even added that the company has set May 31 as the deadline to restore all PSN services.

But Sony disputed Bloomberg’s statement, and pointed out that the May 31 deadline is inaccurate and does not exist. The company has yet to established any deadline for the restoration of PSN, so the people still have to wait until proper security measures are in place.

Sony President Expresses Apologies for PSN Breach

Kazuo Hirai along with a string of Sony executives have already expressed their apologies last week, and now the Sony President – Howard Stringer – himself has released his letter of apologies through the PlayStation blog. Stringer expresses his sorries for the huge inconvenience the PSN (PlayStation Network) security breach has caused, and reaffirms that they’re using all of their resources in fixing the problem the soonest possible.

Howard Stringer’s statement reassures though that there have been “no confirmed evidence any credit card or personal information has been misused, and we continue to monitor the situation closely.” He didn’t clarify if the allegations that the breach was caused by outdated and un-firewalled system servers was true though.

Sony: PSN Credit Card List Rumors Not True

In a recent PlayStation blog “network security” update, Sony Computer Entertainment America spokesperson – Patrick Seybold – reiterated what Sony Deputy President -Kazuo Hirai – has said in last weekend’s press conference: Sony PSN (PlayStation Network) subscribers’ credit card information have not been breached.

Seybold then again expressed his deep apologies “to the many users who were inconvenienced and worried abut [sic] this situation” at the blog post.