The official PlayStation Network blog has news of what Sony’s going to offer PSN fans by way of apology for the weeks-long outage and security breach: free games, movie rentals, service extensions, and more.
Tag Archives | Gaming
PlayStation Network: The Restoration Begins
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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PlayStation Network Outage: Now It’s the Worst One Ever, Right?
(Update: Sony says the PlayStation Network is on its way back to full service.)
Back on April 26th, when Sony’s PlayStation Network outage was less than a week old and we didn’t yet know how bad the security breach was, I said it might be the worst outage ever. Some commenters argued that I was exaggerating, pointing out that the 2007 Xbox Live outage was, at that point, longer.
Okay, it’s close to three weeks later. The PlayStation Network outage continues, it involves the leakage of personal data, and we don’t know when it’ll end. Anyone want to argue that it’s not the single worst fiasco of this type ever?
For kicks, I decided to see how it compared to other well-known service interruptions that impacted millions of people and which lasted for at least a couple of hours. Here’s a chart…
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Triple the Kinect Games? That’s Weak, Microsoft
Microsoft is making what sounds like a lofty promise for Kinect: By year-end, the number of available games for the Xbox 360 motion sensor will triple.
But given that six months after launch, Kinect’s existing lineup stands at a mere 26 games, Microsoft promise isn’t that bold. Hitting 78 games should be cakewalk, and it’s sad to see the revolutionary controller get such little support from developers and publishers.
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Smartphones May Finally Show Up At E3
Contests aren’t something I’d normally report on, but T-Mobile’s “Battle for E3” contest strikes me as newsworthy.
Entrants must upload a 15-second video to T-Mobile’s Facebook page, explaining why they are ultimate gamers and should therefore be chosen as an E3 “correspondent” for the company (i.e., play lots of video games before they’re released). The top prize, aside from the trip to Los Angeles, includes LG’s G2x Android phone.
Without reading into this too much, I think it’s interesting that a wireless carrier is taking such a keen interest in E3. This, combined with other signs, make me think smartphones could finally have a strong showing at the trade show.
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Are Video Games Art? U.S. Gov’t Says Yes!
If you run in nerdy video game enthusiast circles, no debate is more tired than whether video games can aspire to be “art.” The word itself is entirely subjective, and so the answer will always be in the eye of the beholder.
But as far as the National Endowment for the Arts is concerned, video games are indeed works of art — or at least they can be. Video games are now eligible for federal grants under the category for “The Arts in Media,” renamed from “The Arts in Television and Radio.” These grants generally range from $10,000 to $200,000.
That’s peanuts compared to big-budget game development, which can cost upwards of $100 million for a single title, but it will allow independent developers to create ambitious projects that aren’t tailored toward commercial success, and still get paid. This kind of high-minded, non-commercial game development exists already — see Jason Rohrer’s Passage or Daniel Benmergui’s Today I Die for examples — but I’m excited to see what indie developers can make with some government cash behind them.
I don’t, however, expect this to end the games-as-art debate, as GamePro’s Pete Davison suggests. A government grant alone isn’t going to produce video games’ Mona Lisa, Hamlet or — dare I say it — Citizen Kane. And with so much culture around us, I’m not even sure such a game can still exist. But if the government wants to give out money for video games that are culturally significant, or otherwise meaningful, that’s good enough for me.
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Playstation Network Down Indefinitely, Again
Sony has once again missed its own timeframe to get the Playstation Network back online, as the company tries to secure its network after a devastating security breach.
Sony said last Sunday that it expected to bring PSN back up by the end of the week, but those plans were ruined by a separate attack on Sony Online Entertainment, the company’s massive multiplayer gaming service.
“We were unaware of the extent of the attack on Sony Online Entertainment servers, and we are taking this opportunity to conduct further testing of the incredibly complex system,” Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold wrote on the official Playstation Blog. He offered no estimate of when service will be restored.
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Rumor: New Xbox May Be Announced Next Month
Nintendo might not be the only company showing off a new game console at E3 in June. An anonymous source told Develop that Microsoft could announce a new Xbox console at the trade show.
The source supposedly spotted a very early build of the Xbox 360 successor at Electronic Arts’ offices, stored inside a PC shell.
“Quite often when new consoles come around they’re packaged into a PC shell, but actually what’s inside is an entirely new console,” said the source, who Develop described as “a senior, trusted, well-placed” individual who is not employed at Microsoft or EA.
(Props to Develop, by the way, for qualifying its anonymous source with a bit of detail for readers — a rarity in games and tech journalism.)
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Wii Price Drops As Wii Sports Loses Pack-In Status
The rumors were mostly right. On May 15, Nintendo will cut the price of the Wii from $200 to $150, but it’s not a straightforward price drop.
Instead, Nintendo will replace Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort with Mario Kart Wii as the pack-in game. Nintendo will also throw in one Wii wheel to enhance the kart racing experience. Wii Sports, which had been bundled with the console since the beginning, will join a handful of other games — Animal Crossing: City Folk, The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess and Mario Super Sluggers — in a “Select” (read: budget) collection for $20 each. Wii Sports Resort will sell on its own for $40.
I’m happy to see the change for entirely selfish reasons. My Wii Sports disc went missing years ago, and it’d be nice to get a boxed copy as a replacement without spending too much money.
But for everyone else, this price cut isn’t necessarily a great deal. If you want Wii Sports and Sports Resort, you’ll pay an extra $60, bringing to total price to $210. Meanwhile, most retailers are selling the current Wii Sports and Sports Resort bundle for $170. If you’ve been eying a Wii but have no interest in Mario Kart, you might consider the current bundle while supplies last.
Or if you’re really patient, you can wait until 2012, when Nintendo will launch its next console.
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Wii Vitality Sensor: Not Dead, Still Vapor
When Nintendo announced its plans for a next-generation video game console in late April, I wondered if we could unequivocally declare that the Wii Vitality Sensor was vaporware. The answer, according to Nintendo Chief Executive Satoru Iwata, is no.
In a question-and-answer on Nintendo’s website (via Eurogamer), Iwata explains that the Wii Vitality Sensor is very much a work in progress. The problem, he said, is that only 80 percent of test users felt that the sensor naturally detected their biological information. Nintendo doesn’t want to release a product until 99 percent of users feel comfortable. Iwata said “it is difficult to overcome this hurdle,” and wouldn’t commit to a launch date.