Here’s Kazuo Hirai, president of Sony Computer Entertainment, announcing that the PlayStation Network is on its way back online after its amazing, amazingly lengthy outage:

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Seems like he struck the right tone: apologetic and acknowledging that Sony has to rebuild trust, and with a minimum of self-pity over the fact that the problem stemmed from an illegal hacker attack.

Sony isn’t just flipping a switch that will put things back to normal: it’s rolling out the restoration region by region, state by state, and city by city. It’s also requiring PSN users to install a firmware upgrade and (understandably) change their password to get back online. Some parts of the PSN and Qriocity services, such as the PlayStation Store, aren’t part of the initial reboot. And Sony is going to offer a “Welcome Back” package but hasn’t announced the details.

Given the story thus far–Sony initially said that the PSN would be down for a day or two and then said that the restoration that’s only now happening would commence back in early May–I suspect that many PSN fans won’t assume anything until they see the network working for themselves. Even then, the enormity of the security breach means that this saga is far from over.

If you see the PSN working properly with your own eyeballs, let us know.

 
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