Normal PlayStation Network Activity Has Returned After The Outage Earlier In The Year.

The company revealed during its financial call overnight that the costs will "not be as great as originally estimated".

In May, Sony predicted that the cost of the outage would be around 14 billion yen (or £105 million). But, "that was the May forecast," said vice president and chief financial officer Masaru Kato. "The first quarter cost was within our expected range."

"The [total] cost may be smaller than the original cost estimate."

Importantly, Kato stressed that PSN user logins within North America are "on a similar level" to those before the outage, suggesting most people have returned to using their PlayStation 3 as usual. In other more promising news, Kato added that the PSN sales trend in June "was about double the same month last year".

"Many customers have already returned to our service," said Kato. "At one point people were concerned, [but the] impact will not be as great as we originally estimated. Great news."

Sony reported hardware sales had slumped slightly in the first quarter of this year, but that software sales had risen slightly.