Okay, so maybe it's not quite as dramatic as a nuclear explosion, but the recent Playstation Network hack is definitely the most notorious event to befall the gaming industry in quite some time. Though we have yet to see the full fallout from what will go down as one of the biggest and most comprehensive security breaches in the history of modern technology, there is no doubt that this will hurt not only Sony's (admittedly deep) pockets, but also their reputation. Before we get into that, however, allow me a moment to bring the uninitiated up to speed...
PSN? What in the Sam Hell is a PSN...I still can't figure out where to put the stamp on this e-mail!!!
On April 20th, 2011, if you listened hard enough, a collective groan could be heard emanating from the mouths of millions of PS3 owners as the Playstation Network suddenly went offline. At first, this was nothing to truly be concerned about, as the PSN does, from time to time, go down for a bit for maintenance or a server hiccup or some other such thing, but is very rarely gone for too long. Then 24 hours passed, with the only word from Sony essentially stating that they were aware that the service was down (well, no shit, Sony, you run the damn thing). Another 24 hours later, on April 22nd, with online gamers already suffering from severe withdrawal from the service (symptoms of which include: having to go outside or interact with other human beings in your vicinity), Sony finally issued a vague statement, indicating that the PSN was down due to an "external intrusion" and that to "verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off Playstation Network."
Over the next several days, Sony was relatively quiet and other than ensuring users that they were in the process of rebuilding the network, they gave no indication of when that network might be back online. Then finally, on April 26th, Sony dropped a bomb that nobody was expecting: the personal information of all PSN users (roughly 77 million accounts) was stolen and "While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility". The next several weeks (and counting...this mess is by no means over) were to become a special sort of hell on earth for Sony Computer Entertainment.
Yeah, it's gonna be hard for Sony to shrug this one off...
As time passed, not only was it gamers who were becoming antsy for the return of their beloved PSN, developers and publishers were starting to feel the effects as well. Lest we forget, it is not only Sony and their customer base taking a hit on this kerfuffle; just like the film industry, video game publishers plan the release dates for their games on certain dates so as to not go head to head with other major titles in order to sell the most units and this goes for downloadable titles just as much as for disc release games. One particularly amusing bit of devastation this caused was to a little title called "Socom 4", a major title release of a game whose primary reason for existence is to be played online. It was released the day before the network went down, I'll let you work that one out for yourselves.
Obviously, due to the PSN being down, certain planned release dates for downloadable PSN titles were being missed, a major issue which has yet to see a resolution, due to the Playstation store still being offline. Not only this, the loss of the PSN has also caused delays on the actual development of the games themselves. I personally saw a decent number of co-workers temporarily laid off due to the inability to continue testing their project without an active PSN. With the demand for a concrete planned date of PSN restoration coming from all sides, Sony finally acquiesced at a May 1st press conference and laid down a definite May 4th triumphant return of the Playstation Network!
While it is understandable that Sony wanted to calm the seas with a definite return date, that rushed announcement may or may not end up hurting them in the long run, once people (read: Congress) are sifting through the ashes of this whole thing. May 4th came and went with no PSN, but never fear, they will definitely have it back up by May 6th, definitely no later than that. With no PSN restoration by the dawn of May 7th, Sony finally said "fuck it" and just told everyone to be patient, but that they were totally sorry about everything and that when they did come back, every PSN subscriber would be hooked up with some "totally killer loot" (the "totally killer" part of this deal is subjective depending on if you already own most or all of the games being offered).
Sony's offer: FREE PUPPIES FOR EVERYONE!!!
Sony's PSN finally came back online on May 14th, 2011, a full 10 days after their initial estimate and a full 24 days after the system was initially shut down. While the PSN is online and 13 year olds can once again scream racial epithets over an online game of Black Ops, the Playstation Store remains offline with no official date of restoration other than "by the end of the month". Things are certainly not yet going smoothly for Sony and if the bumpy road they've encountered since PSN restoration is any indication, they won't be getting better anytime soon.
Japan has refused to allow the PSN to go back online in its country until they receive more information from Sony about the extent of the hack. The United States Congress continues to request Sony to testify about the whole situation, requests which Sony continues to refuse until they "have finished their own internal investigations". Just yesterday, May 18th, Sony shut down its web based network due to a password reset exploit that was discovered, wherein any hacker with a user's full name and date of birth could be used to gain access (some of the very information that was stolen in the first place). Perhaps most importantly, I still can't fucking play Mortal Kombat online, due to their fucking EA style redemption code, which must be entered through the fucking still shut down Playstation Store!!!
This is DEFINITELY more important than any of that stuff I mentioned up there!
Alas, regardless of my personal feelings on the matter, this is going to be a tough year for Sony. With E3 coming up in a couple of weeks, I'm very curious to see what Sony has to say about the whole situation, once both PSN and Playstation store are finally back up and running at full capacity. I'm curious to see what the developers have to say about it. Outside of gaming, I believe that the full ramifications of this issue have yet to sink in. If a person or group can so completely devastate one of the largest and most secure networks in the world and yank out as much personal information about its users as possible, who is to say that it can't be done elsewhere? All it would take to nearly cripple an entire nation's economy is somebody talented enough and willing enough to compromise one of these networks, let's say Amazon (whose cloud servers, interestingly enough, have been discovered to have been the instrument of the PSN attack), and actually manage to steal all the credit card information, then immediately use that information to make massive amounts of purchases around the globe. Though I have been informed by someone who knows more about this sort of thing than I do, that the possibility of decrypting credit card information is somewhere between none and actually converting a DeLorean into a working time machine, that doesn't mean it's impossible. In this day and age, you no longer need bombs to destroy a country...just some really dedicated computer nerds. One last note: I did not realize I was just essentially summarizing the plot to Live Free or Die Hard right there, it just happened naturally. Do with that what you will.
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