The venom pointed at the PlayStation Network is always at its peak when the service is offline, as everyone tends to go back to their business when functionality is restored. That said, there's no denying that the platform's recent holiday outage was unfortunate, and even though a faction of cyber attackers may be to blame, Sony's come good for its consumers.
Writing on the PlayStation Blog, senior vice president of Sony Network Entertainment hopped online to once again apologise for the disruption – and confirm that everyone that was subscribed to PlayStation Plus on 25th December will have their subscriptions extended by five days. This applies to both free trials and full memberships. Moreover, you'll still be eligible if your sub has since expired.
The platform holder promises that much of this will occur automatically behind-the-scenes, and that it will provide additional information as and when it has it to share. Furthermore, as a gesture of goodwill to non-premium members, it will be offering a 10 per cent discount code for every PlayStation Network user, which will be good for one full transaction on the PlayStation Store.
It sounds like you'll be able to use this during a complete checkout, so theoretically you could buy several pieces of content at once, and still use the code – although, that's us reading between the lines. More information on this is, again, expected in the near future – presumably next week when everyone's back at work. In the meantime, let us know if you're satisfied with this compensation in the comments section below.
[source blog.us.playstation.com, via blog.eu.playstation.com]
Comments 51
Extended? No. Gave us the days back we paid for and are entitled to by law. Bare minimum they could do. 10% discount is okay, I guess. Doubt I'll use it for anything much as nearly everything on the store is 20% more expensive than retail so it's not beneficial. Better than nowt though I guess. Think we'd all prefer if they used the money they'll lose on this 10% discount to hire people to help stop this crap happening again, or is that too much like a solution?
New font in this place?
@rastamadeus Sadly, the 'solution' isn't quite as simple as it may seem: http://kotaku.com/how-ddos-attacks-work-and-why-theyre-so-hard-to-stop-1676445620
@get2sammyb Hiring people to at least resolve issues in a day or two like Microsoft rather than five would be a massive improvement though, no? A compensation package isn't needed by Sony but people who know what they're doing (no idea about all this myself) is needed as every division of the company just doesn't seem to understand internet security. Maybe some lessons in keeping people up to date rather than burying their heads in the sand too.
@rastamadeus Good point I got mine at launch in the UK games were £59.99 minimum at the time, like a fool I kept buying them (call me lazy as I was) not any longer I found it's cheaper to buy from amazon by at least £15-20 so no download waiting, I get the actual disc too & on same day as release. The price's are absurd and until they bring it to cheaper than online retailers I will not be buying any more full PSN games, I just wish I had done so earlier as I brought 8 full games one costing £64.99 yet on amazon it was £42. I'm not hating on Sony but come on, how can they expect people to pay those crazy prices & not even give us the disc to trade after completion.... That should be why PSN full games should be cheaper than retail, unless I'm missing something. Happy new year all
@Hawk It ain't just Sony, they all do it. Nintendo are still charging nearly £50 for Super Mario 3D World on the eShop. Sadly they all just sell at the RRP when if a game is £40 in a shop it should be at the very least £35 online. Especially if they want us to go all digital one day. Or send the disc in the post like Sky do with their Buy and Keep promotion maybe.
@rastamadeus "entitled to by law. " What are you going on about? You paid for x amount of days of the service. You're still going to get that because you get 5 additional days added on to your subscription for free. It's unfortunate that PSN went down on Christmas, and Sony really needs to step up their online security, but they aren't "entitled by law" to refund you for 5 days (which would be like... a dollar) as opposed to extending the sub.
@ZBomber You pay for a year and then you don't get a year. You complain. Some by law of the contract entitles you to having those five days. Happened with me a couple of years ago when o2 internet went down for ten days and the guy on the phone told me to enquire about having ten days for 'free'. This is just what Sony are doing.
@rastamadeus You can't say any of that definitively, though. I'm not defending anyone, but comparing Microsoft's infrastructure to Sony's is like apples to oranges. PSN works across three platforms, for example, compared to the two of Xbox Live. We also don't know whether the DDoS attacks were of a comparative scale between services. There are also, I assume, more members trying to use PSN.
I'm not saying that any of this is ok — far from it — I just think that people can be a bit too hasty to say X, Y, and Z should be happening when they don't really have any understanding of the extent or scale of the operation they're talking about.
I very much doubt that Sony is sitting on the other side thinking: "Oh well, we were only down for the four days this time. That's alright, we'll just sit on our bums and do nothing."
@rastamadeus I'm still not sure I'm following you. You're still getting the same amount of days. You aren't being sold 365 days and you only get 360.
@ZBomber I only mention it as the word 'extends' in the articles title isn't correct is all. What I'm trying to say is that it's not a massive gesture or anything, it's just doing what they have to do because of the law. If they didn't give us the five days back then people who know about that by law (if that's even the name of it) could complain and get compensated, even if it was just a few pennies. Then others start doing it. Before you know it it's a mess. It's saving face and trying to get a bit of good publicity after they fibbed (intentionally or through misinformation) about PSN being fixed days before it actually was. Microsoft will have to repay the people who missed a day or two as well.
@get2sammyb I'm sure no-one at Sony was ignoring it but you have to admit they hardly give off an impression of professionalism in seeming like they're burying their heads in the sand. You yourself wrote an article slamming them for doing just that before they broke radio silence. Improving that is a must. And yeah I'm not sure of any of the details and maybe Sony were hit harder and it was difficult but maybe they were hit lower and their incompetence hindered them like it did a few years back and recently with the leaks from their movie division. We don't know. To me though Sony give off the impression that they don't have a clue what they're doing and simple things like communication would improve that vastly. On the network side of it whether Microsoft have two devices, one or thirty they got it sorted much faster than Sony. That needs to be looked into at a matter of urgency inside the company and is something I would prefer they spent the money on they will be giving away with 10% discounts is all.
@rastamadeus Yes correct my bad microsoft was the same too £50 or £54.99 for cod ghosts on 360, yet £39.99 in shop. To make it worth while prices need to come down or at least give us a trade back type option, say awarding us money off our next purchase (and they revoke the licence for the game we traded with them) anything will do, just not crazy prices with no trade option unlike on Physical disc purchases as it doesn't make sense. My HD is already full so for me to play a game now I have to delete my downloaded ones, which if I wish to play again I have to re-download them. I know I can get a bigger HD but it's not the point as installs are way quicker than throttled downloads. Happy gaming everyone
Monetry compensation? Pennies are good for what. The extension is a good idea, suggestions of a partial refund are not. The issues with driveclub are more valid for a refund.
@Hawk Nintendo offered something with Wii U. If you got the 'premium' edition of the console you got some sort of money back from each digital purchase that you could store up and use. Or maybe when it reached a certain amount you could, not entirely sure. Something like that is a good start. If we're going digital only like these companies want us to then incentives like that have to happen a lot more often. Even something like every pound spent gets you a point and if you reach say 100 points you get a free indie game or can save it up for, I dunno, 250 points to get a fully fledged game.
@rastamadeus Got you, I thought you were trying to say they were legally obligated to refund the days lost as opposed to "extending" the subscription. Misread your first post, sorry.
The Nintendo Network is worlds better than PSN/XBL, because it's FREE! It never went down during christmas... (LOL!) I'll never pay for PSN, it is way cheaper to do physical copies. How does that "always online" taste now?
@ZBomber No worries. I've not slept yet this year so I may have made a mess of what I was trying to say, haha.
@Tiberius30 Too tired to work out if that's sarcasm or not. If so then ignore this. If not then you need locking up. I got a Wii U over Christmas and when I went online to buy the Mario Kart 8 DLC I was shocked by how shoddy the online service was, same when I went online on both the game and Smash. It's better than the Wii but the Dreamcast's online structure was better than the Wii. And there'd be no point attacking the Nintendo Network as it would only bother a handful of people and the Lizard idiots wouldn't get any attention off of that.
@Tiberius30 psn is free it's ps+ thats needed for multiplayer but that's only for the ps4 and not the vita/PS3
They're doing the right and honorable thing here. Muchos respect.
@rastamadeus and @hawk - I'm sure there are other reasons besides this but I think one of the reasons retail games are sold at the rrp on psn is partly due to pressure from retailers. I worked for Sony about 14 years ago and we could only sell at the rrp otherwise our retailers would threaten to withdraw our products. This was the case even for a minor discount - under no circumstances could we undercut their prices. Now you might ask why is Sony so beholden to it's retailers when it has its own digital distribution network etc but retailers constitute a huge percentage of total sales (not to mention branding, marketing etc.). Hopefully this will change going forward but as consumers our only allegiance is to price whereas for manufacturers there are myriad factors to consider.
@rastamadeus everything you said in every post I could not possibly agree with more. You are on fire!!
Too bad my PS+ expired BF, I could have used those 5 days to finish up Tomb Raider.
Nice to see them offering something. My life philosophy is everything is screwed up so I tend to judge companies by how they react to their screw ups, b/c lets face it most corporations have better lawyers than we do so they really dont need to do much.
@get2sammyb is PSP already offline only or do PSN still have 4 platforms? I owned PSP but sold it few years ago so i'm not sure.
Edit: Checked right answer from internet. My friend is propably happy now that she bought my old PSP model and not Go.
"A compensation package isn't needed by Sony but people who know what they're doing (no idea about all this myself)"
how about stop commenting like you think you do then
This "reward" for dealing with the PSN outage is a joke. So PS+ get an extension to what they already paid for? Pfft. That should happen regardless.
And the 10% coupon thing is weak. So now I have to SPEND $ to get a "reward" for my patience & not being able to play my online games during that week? And it's an extreme minimal reward, at that.
Sony is really starting to tick me off.
@Godsire- you can always play on Microsoft & Nintendo or any PC...
not sonys fault that childish friendless lifeless losers exist. and besides it was 3 days for cryingout loud lol. 3 of the worse days for it to happen i realise but 3 days non the less. my advice is to take up guitar
I can't believe there are people who still defend Sony to the death over this. Sony itself admitted to a f**k up by extending the subscriptions. Hopefully in 2015 the company does more with the money it gets from these subscriptions and hires people who have half a clue what they're doing. XBL isn't perfect either, but in my experience with both, Live has been the much better run service. I'd say 'you get what you pay for' but PSN isn't free anymore, for $50 a year, some of the stuff that has gone on is unacceptable.
@rastamadeus actually, you are completely wrong here. In sonys ps plus end user agreement it states that they can cancel your service for any reason, and that interruptions of service are to be expected at times. So legally, sony is not required to do anything at all and giving us the extended days is just because they want to make up for this. So before you start spouting law nonsense, realize you signed a contract when you subscribed without reading it and that you are in fact not entitled.
@Godsire- I am sorry, is the free stuff not to your liking, perhaps you should take Microsoft up on what it offered free for effected user.......Wait.
@rastamadeus, the Nintendo Network Premium Points scheme only applied to the 32GB WII U, it was only a temporary scheme which ended on 31st Dec 14, you earned 8 points for every £ or € spent. Once you got 500 points you got a £5 voucher. People who still have unclaimed vouchers have until 31st March 15.
Sony's online account system is still light years ahead on Nintendo's though.
Tbh I haven't played much ps in December so my whole month sub was wasted. So wat happened didn't really affect me but 5 days free is good
@Hawk
Digital prices won't come down until retail ceases to exist, which let's face it isn't going to happen and nor should we want to. If Sony start undercutting shops with digital prices the shops will stop stocking Sony in favour of their competitors. So get rid of retail? No, we need them to provide competition as that keeps prices lower. If we could only buy digital from Sony they could charge whatever they wanted
Am I wrong, but did not everyone subscribing to PS Plus in December get a free copy of Injustice: Gods Among Us and Secret Ponchos, worth more than £40 collectively (not to mention the other games on other platforms if you own them of course). Plus the ability to game online for the other 25 days of the month.
Like others, I'm not defending Sony's inability to communicate what was going on during the fiasco, but bad things happen quite often, and in the grand scheme of the world not being able to play GTA Online / COD against other people for 4 or 5 days rates pretty low on my levels of "bad".
Sony have done the decent thing here and "credited" back the lost days, as well as offering a 10% discount for sales on PSN - good on them. Watch and wait for MS to follow suit now. This is why we need competition folks!
@rastamadeus1. WARRANTY DISCLAIMER AND LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
No warranty is given about the quality, functionality, availability or performance of SEN First Party Services, or any content or service offered on or through SEN First Party Services. All services and content are provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" with all faults. SNEI does not warrant that the service and content will be uninterrupted, error-free or without delays. In addition to the limitations of liability of this Agreement, SNEI expressly disclaims any implied warranty of merchantability, warranty of fitness for a particular purpose and warranty of non-infringement. SNEI assumes no liability for any inability to purchase, access, download or use any content, data or service.
This is.in the TOS we all agreed to so to be fair this is a.good deal. They did not have to offer us anything.
10% is good with sone good Digital titles coming out
To be fair though Sony do need to improve on their communication skills. Would not hurt to keep us up dated but I am.happy that the people behind the attacks are being arrested now!
Edit: just seen this was posted before me. Sorry for duplicate post.
@rastamadeus as entitled by law, it clearly stated that sony doesnt have any obligation to give us ANY compensation regarding the attack (pt 16)
http://legaldoc.dl.playstation.net/ps3-eula/psn/e/e_tosua_en.html
compensation applied if they permanently shut SEN down
so, lets just view this as a nice gesture from sony to their customer.
Nintendo offer users 10% off all digital purchases for two years as a way of saying thanks (Well the premium edition was 50 quid more expensive than the basic and came with console holder/dock/more memory so in my head premium membership was a cherry on top)
Sony, through mostly the fault of sad people, fail to perform as advertised and do a awful job of communicating/fixing it and give us a one off 10% off code? Pathetic, if I buy one game (Say REmake HD) I'll save a whole £1.70, it comes across like an attempt to get us to spend more money more than anything.
@dacendarin
Xbox Live wasn't down for FIVE days.
@godsire Sony fans. By summer 2015, they'll swear the PSN outage was hours short and they got 3 free physical releases, while XBL was down for days longer and Microsoft sent all subscribers anthrax.
Right, that's quite enough arguing. We don't need to turn this into war over which console has what, so let's try to stay on topic.
nice, let the DDoS attacks continue. we'll all get a free year.
@Godsire- I was only locked out of psn for two, and Xbox is giving you nothing at all. Tell me, what is yhe minimum required days it has to be down for a comp service reimbursement? Xbox shouldn't do something but sony should? Bias.
@dacendarin
Bias? How so? When did defend Microsoft? I was simply stating that Xbox Live was down for a shorter time than PSN, which it was.
Why can't Sony get their act together fixing stuff faster? Or at least communicate what is going on (in a timely manner)?
@Gamer83
Couln't have said it better myself.
I'm not sure Sony is required by law to compensate any amount of days for issues such as this. I haven't studied the fine print but I'm sure there must be some caveat in the contract. It's very difficult to obtain redress with digital services, as the provider "cannot guarantee a fault free service".
5 days and 10% off ? WHAT ? Thats it ? Sorry but its not enough
@professorhat
It is a big deal if you spend $400 but can't get your system to function properly because you can't get onto the internet. If these services were free, if these consoles weren't so damn internet reliant, it wouldn't be an issue but that's not the case.
@Gmork___ if im paying $400 + $60 +$X (game) it better work every single day, and if not, i expect a decent reward, this is a joke, especially considering that digital prices tend stay higher way longer
@professorhat Gods among us was like $4 dollsrs on steam, same with Secret Ponchos which was $7 dollars a month ago, last steam sale i got much better games (mostly because i choose which ones to get) for the same money i spend on PS+ for a year...
Not to mention that in PC, online its free and its miles (infinite) miles better than PS4
If im paying $400 + $50 a year, why am i supposed to be cool with the fact that i cant use the damn thing even if its for a single day, and even if im not using it id like to know that i have the choice too, Sorry but no.
@Faruko
Quite agree.
With respect to the people who keep trotting out the mantra that you can't defend against a ddos attack you're missing a key point: Sony (and MS) have made their "networks" single points of failure. They urgently need to let the games companies support their own online infrastructure and take psn completely out of the online "loop". Then you no longer have Sony or MS as single points of failure for all of the console's online services and ddos attacks no longer make much of a noticeable impact (you may get individual games' online services attacked from time to time but the impact is an order of magnitude smaller than what we saw over Christmas).
So, Sony and ms need to fundamentally change how their consoles rely on their own vulnerable services and instead distribute the online services more broadly. This is all software so they really have no excuses here for fixing these issues.
And remember they only manage to hide behind the "can't defend against ddos attacks" excuse because no one's calling them out on the flawed architecture that relies one everyone being constantly logged in to psn.
@Gamer83 @Faruko
Stand by what I said i.e. "bad things happen quite often, and in the grand scheme of the world, not being able to play GTA Online / COD against other people for 4 or 5 days rates pretty low on my levels of "bad"."
Clearly we have different ideas on what "bad" is though. First world problems, eh? Who'd want them?
My plus ran out today but I don't sem to have extra 5 days is this for real or ?
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