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GAMERS around the kingdom were left in a festive fume this holiday season as Sony’s massively popular online gaming platform PlayStation Network (PSN) was intermittently disabled globally for almost a week.
Adults and children alike were furious to learn that their shiny new PlayStation 4 consoles they had procured from Santa were nothing more than extremely expensive ornaments under their television screens.
PSN, which has over 110 million subscribers, is a feature that allows gamers to download and purchase games, install game updates and access multiplayer features to play with their friends around the world.
Although disc-based software is still accessible without an online connection, the majority of the console’s features can only be accessed by linking with Sony’s servers. With the excitement of a new machine and a rush to jump online and join likeminded friends, frustrations were understandably high.
One new PS4 owner, Ali Abdullatif from Isa Town, had just unwrapped his gift and had hurriedly plugged it in so he could play against his friends on popular superhero fighting game Injustice: Gods Among Us, before receiving numerous error messages.
The 23 year-old said: “I was massively frustrated trying to log in and finding that nothing was working. I had no idea what was happening until I went on the Internet to see if I could find a fix, and I saw help sites were exploding with question from similar users.
“I had been looking forward to playing my PS4 for months, and it was hugely disappointing to find it essentially useless for almost a week. It put a damper on the festive period for sure.”
The source of the Network’s downtime was attributed, although not confirmed, to hacking group Lizard Squad, who claimed responsibility stating that their intentions were ‘because they could’ and also to expose weaknesses in the company’s security systems.
It was not until New Year’s Eve that normality was resumed and PSN was running smoothly again, after a week of issues at the worst possible time for the company. To compensate for the downtime, Sony have promised five days of free subscription to their premium PlayStation Plus service, as well as a one-time-only 10 per cent discount on purchases from the PlayStation Store.
It has been a tumultuous month for the Japanese company, with their Sony Pictures Entertainment branch suffering a huge cyber-attack and the theft of vast amounts of data, while the furore over parody film The Interview has led to well-publicised threats from North Korea.
