We have been covering the Sony Corporation (ADR) (Public, NYSE:SNE) PlayStation Network outage very closely. To find any answers about PSN on Sony’s website PlayStation Network subscribers need to dig pretty deep.
You must first scroll past all of the ads looking to sign new users to a service that at the time is not working, way to go Sony. The marketing catch phrases include the Epic Fail: “PlayStation® community 29 million people with one thing in common”.
Yes, and that common thread is we all want to know – When will Playstation Network be back up? If you scroll to the bottom of the PSN page there is a link to the PlayStation Network Blog. The blog was last updated yesterday and states on April 21st :
While we are investigating the cause of the Network outage, we wanted to alert you that it may be a full day or two before we’re able to get the service completely back up and running. Thank you very much for your patience while we work to resolve this matter. Please stay tuned to this space for more details, and we’ll update you again as soon as we can.
Yesterday Sony updated their blog with pretty much the same message.
An external intrusion on our system has affected our PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. In order to conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward, we turned off PlayStation Network & Qriocity services on the evening of Wednesday, April 20th. Providing quality entertainment services to our customers and partners is our utmost priority. We are doing all we can to resolve this situation quickly, and we once again thank you for your patience. We will continue to update you promptly as we have additional information to share.
Well Sony it has been a couple of days and we still have no answers. Microsoft Corporation (Public, NASDAQ:MSFT) has been having a marketing field day with the outage. All weekend long the Xbox Live has been free for non paying members. This doesn’t help many people. Even gamers like myself that have both systems don’t have a collection of game titles for both gaming systems.
Sony is offering 3 extra months of PSN for NEW subscribers that sign up for a year subscription before May 3rd. The new subscribers also get a free copy of new multiplayer offering Red Faction: Battlegrounds. The existing customers what do we get? More agitated. What I find troublesome about this whole deal is why does the new subscriber promotion end on May 3rd? Is this the date when Sony thinks they will finally be able to get the Playstation Network back up?
Troubling.
