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Xbox Live and PlayStation Networks Downed By Apparent Attack
mrspoonsi writes Both Xbox Live and PlayStation Network [were] down this morning, apparently due to a denial-of-service attack. The notorious hacking group Lizard Squad — which already carried out earlier attacks on Microsoft and Sony — has claimed responsibility on Twitter for these latest outages. While the group's role in all of this remains unconfirmed, it's worth noting that the group threatened last week to take down Xbox Live and PSN, according to Business Insider. And again, Lizard Squad has already proven it can successfully pull off such attacks, not to mention other malicious pranks.
Whatever the cause, the timing is obviously terrible: Plenty of people surely received one of the two consoles as Christmas presents today, while many more gamers would have happily spent the afternoon in front of the TV. In the meantime, both Sony and Microsoft have acknowledged the problem, with Sony issuing a tweet and Microsoft posting a message on its support website: "We're working to address this as quickly as we possibly can," reads its status website. "Thanks for your patience, Xbox members." In an email, a Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment further or say when the company expects to restore service. We've also asked Sony to comment and will update this post if and when it does. The Xbox Live status page says service remains "limited," and the Playstation Network is listed as offline.
Whatever the cause, the timing is obviously terrible: Plenty of people surely received one of the two consoles as Christmas presents today, while many more gamers would have happily spent the afternoon in front of the TV. In the meantime, both Sony and Microsoft have acknowledged the problem, with Sony issuing a tweet and Microsoft posting a message on its support website: "We're working to address this as quickly as we possibly can," reads its status website. "Thanks for your patience, Xbox members." In an email, a Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment further or say when the company expects to restore service. We've also asked Sony to comment and will update this post if and when it does. The Xbox Live status page says service remains "limited," and the Playstation Network is listed as offline.
The thing is, the game servers are just fine. If we didn't have to go through the Playstation Network we'd be playing the games right now. In fact, some of us were playing this morning after the attack occurred. But since we were already logged in we could keep playing. After the game servers went down for daily maintenance, and we then tried to log back in, did we realize there was a problem. This then brings up the big question: Why do Playstation users have to first get recognized by the PSN? It has been asked many times over the years with no good answer. When something like this occurs, why not just let us bypass the PSN and play the games. Yes, we won't be able to add money to our accounts, redeem codes, or buy updates. But so what. We'd still be able to play.
Care killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.
Less merry for adults, too. We got an Xbox One for the grandkids, and I tried to help my son get it sorted for a couple of hours. The situation was magnified by inappropriate error messages from Microsoft pointing fingers at our cables, our network, our ISP's network, and, in short, everything except their own darned servers! A single approximately correct error diagnosis from them (like "Our servers may be knackered. Check back later.") would have redirected our efforts more appropriately.
When I finally stopped checking Microsoft's website and got around to looking at news sites, I told them about the DOS. One of my grandsons said "Think of the children!"