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After Outage, Sony Makes Peace Offering To Users of PlayStation Network

Posted by samzenpus on from the sorry-for-your-trouble dept.

An anonymous reader notes that Sony is offering deals to make up for the downtime over Christmas. "PlayStation Network gamers didn't have such a happy holiday thanks to the reported handiwork of some hackers, so Sony is hoping to appease users of its online gaming service with promises of deals and discounts. For Playstation Plus subscribers, Sony is offering a 5-day membership extension, and for all members, a 10 percent discount at the PlayStation store, according to a blog post published Thursday. The PlayStation Network is Sony's online service for its PlayStation game console. Both PSN and Microsoft's online gaming service, Xbox Live, were intermittently offline beginning on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Xbox Live came back online first, with PSN following Saturday night."

95 comments

  1. Lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    They're really skimping now.

    1. Re:Lame by GuldKalle · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Completely agree. First off, trying to upsell by giving a 10% off coupon is just lousy as hell. And especially for digital goods. And second, 5 days extension for a 4-day down time is extremely weak. It's not like they haven't had a chance to learn.

      --
      What?
    2. Re:Lame by binarylarry · · Score: 4, Informative

      Seems like samzenpus is really putting PR spin on this, shouldn't it read:

      "After Outage, Sony Gives the Finger and Jerk Off Motion To Users of PlayStation Network"

      --
      Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
    3. Re: Lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It is lame and despite the fact that I generally feel complaining about "free" things is a dickbag move here is why this is insulting.

      First off 10% off isn't a reward or sorry for gamers its a way for sony to try to recover lost revenue by enticing people to buy things they might not have.

      Here's the real issue. What about people such as myself who already bought or received all the major releases? There is literally nothing for me to buy right now. Why can't this 10% off be in the form of a code that we can use any time we wish?

      I already know the answer. Its because Sony doesn't care about people like me. They already got my money. As I said above they are only after making up lost revenue...revenue from people who are new or don't buy much content.

      This appology is a backhanded insult and a way to pad Sony's bottom line. Anyone who believes otherwise is a fool.

      Oh and 5 whole free days of psn..wow the joy. Psn is down constantly ddos or not. At least every other week there is an issue. All damn year its been like this. Really Sony owes us like 2 months of extension.

      I won't be renewing my subscription its not worth it. Sony's setup is piss poor. Multiplayer is more laggy than Xbox live, download speeds are 1/4 of what Xbox live pushes out, it has less features, way less uptime and the "free" games they have offered have been terrible all year long.

      Sorry sony but put relationship as far as psn goes is over. I paid for a year and a year was enough to see how you are not really serious about improving your network. Its no better than it was 5 years ago on ps3. While I don't like paying for live I can at least see the benefits to doing so. Fast speeds, dedicated servers, lag free multiplayer, chat that works, friends lists that actually load... Wtf sony?

    4. Re:Lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What, you mean you don't apologize to people with coupons? Always works for me. I ran over someone's cat last week, gave them a coupon book to McDonald's. Saved all the good ones for myself of course. That made everything better. I'm such a great person.

    5. Re:Lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      They have learned that their clients have very high tolerance for this sort of thing. They might fill the forums with lamentation, but once things are up and running again, their wallets are wide open!

      Sony will continue to misbehave so long as people continue to pay them for it.

      I swore off Sony the FIRST time the released a rootkit, and have never touched a Sony offering since.

      Sony is dead to me.

    6. Re:Lame by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Indeed they didn't learn. I was actually expecting them to do diddly squat knowing that their customers have no choice but to swallow the turd anyway.

      Sony, you're getting weak. What's next, customer service deserving the name?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    7. Re:Lame by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Actually, no. While I agree from a sentimental point and from a point of fairness, I sure as hell don't expect either from Sony.

      What I actually expected was something along the lines of "yeah, it was down. Suck it up and pay, fuckers". Because, essentially, that's what they could do. What alternative do you have? Not pay for their "online gaming experience"? It's not like they don't have a monopoly on you playing online with your PS[3|4|whatever]. Their way or the highway.

      And knowing Sony, I really, really have to wonder what prompted them to this move.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    8. Re:Lame by bouldin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I remember the days of Quake, when anybody could host their own server. If your server was popular, it became a virtual hangout.

      Sony moved all the servers to their poorly built "PS Network" so they could control your experience and make you pay.

    9. Re: Lame by bouldin · · Score: 1

      It is lame and despite the fact that I generally feel complaining about "free" things is a dickbag move here is why this is insulting.

      Complain away.. this is NOT a free service.

      They lock you out of hosting your own server so you have to subscribe to PSN.

    10. Re:Lame by ShaunC · · Score: 1

      wParam's at VT, those were the days...

      --
      Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
    11. Re: Lame by Chuck+Chunder · · Score: 1

      There is literally nothing for me to buy right now. Why can't this 10% off be in the form of a code that we can use any time we wish?

      Isn't that pretty much what Sony are saying they will give. A code you get to apply to a shopping cart once?

      "In addition, sometime this month we will announce that for a limited time, we will be offering a 10 percent discount code good for a one-time discount off a total cart purchase in the PlayStation Store as a thank you to all PSN members."

      I suppose the the "for a limited time" could be a problem, depending on how reasonable it is. If it was something like 6 months then it probably isn't too bad. In that time frame there would probably be something you would buy anyway. At that point it probably comes down to whether the code recipient us capable of delaying gratification. If there's plenty of time to use the code and you choose to use it to buy things you wouldn't have otherwise then that'd be your choice (no doubt one Sony would be happy with). Personally I'll aim to hang on to it until there's something I want. If it turns out there's a game I want, a TV series I want and a movie or two I'd like to see then the 10% could be quite a saving. Then again I've already got more games queued up than I have time to play.

      --
      Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
    12. Re:Lame by The+Rizz · · Score: 1

      Sony moved all the servers to their poorly built "PS Network" so they could control your experience and make you pay.

      Actually, Microsoft did that with XBox Live - and raked in "ton$ of ca$h" with it for years while Sony didn't charge a thing. PS+ wasn't required for online play until PS4 - and you can bet Sony only did that because MS had proven you could make billions extra that way. At least Sony is nice enough to give you some free games with it each month (which Sony started, and MS added later).

    13. Re:Lame by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      Replying to myself:

      I did swear off Sony, but I actually own a Sony head unit in my car, a PS4, a Sony alarm clock and some Sony headphones. I just post AC so no one can actually hold me to anything I say. But I don't think I bought any Sony music. And that's what I kinda meant...

    14. Re:Lame by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

      Actually they don't, I haven't purchased a Sony console since PS2. After that I swore never to purchase another gaming console due to them releasing a new one every 2 to 3 years.

      --
      I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
    15. Re: Lame by sudon't · · Score: 1

      I'm still on the PS3, and there is no extra charge to get on the network. My roommate got a PS4, and I am considering it, but when I think of having to now pay to connect to that laggy service, it gives me pause. Of course, I'm rarely sure whether to blame R* or PSN, but either way, it's a lot of money to just play GTA, which is the only online game I play on a console. I have no interest in their "Plus" offerings, or in their Store. As far as I'm concerned, I shouldn't have to go through them at all to connect to R*, or Netflix, or anyone else's servers.

      --
      -- sudon't

      Air-ride Equipped

    16. Re:Lame by weblolek · · Score: 1

      People always has a short memory, and they know about them. So as long we forgive, they will using.

      --
      World it's a game, so let's Play
  2. Yeah keep it... by koan · · Score: 1

    Fix your security issues instead, and stop blaming 3rd world nations for your own incompetence.

    --
    "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    1. Re:Yeah keep it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Be careful, your ignorance is showing. The network going down had absolutely nothing to do with security issues.

    2. Re:Yeah keep it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sony never blamed any third-world country, the FBI did.

      Also, the hack itself had nothing to do with incompetence (except for the password files, although those weren't apparently needed). ANY system that has an outward-facing server can be compromised. Just ask Kevin Mitnick, who has yet to fail to find a vulnerability for clients who ask.

    3. Re:Yeah keep it... by GuldKalle · · Score: 1

      This is about the ddos of Sony Playstation Network, not about the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment.

      --
      What?
    4. Re: Yeah keep it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In all fairness, they really could use some decentralization. Spread it out over a few thousand servers all over.

    5. Re:Yeah keep it... by koan · · Score: 1

      "Sony"

      --
      "If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
    6. Re:Yeah keep it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And? It's still Sony, they still got hacked, and they're still blaming third parties for their own lack of security. Who cares which division of Sony it was?

    7. Re:Yeah keep it... by bouldin · · Score: 1

      Be careful, your ignorance is showing. The network going down had absolutely nothing to do with security issues.

      What?

      Security = Confidentiality + Integrity + Availability

      Resistance to a D-DoS attack is absolutely security.

    8. Re:Yeah keep it... by rossz · · Score: 1

      A large scale DDoS is almost impossible to prevent. There are things you can do to reduce the damage, but if the bot-net is large enough, you're fucked.

      --
      -- Will program for bandwidth
    9. Re:Yeah keep it... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Sony"

      Humanity

  3. Great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Great!

    "Sorry you couldn't play the games and hardware you paid for, please buy more from us at a marginal discount."

  4. Seppuku by PPH · · Score: 2, Funny

    Think about it.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  5. no excuse by slashmydots · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There's no excuse for making gamers spend time with their families on Christmas, damn it.

    1. Re:no excuse by rsmith-mac · · Score: 1

      There's no excuse for making gamers spend time with their families on Christmas, damn it.

      Some of us spent quality time with our families by gaming, you insensitive clod.

    2. Re:no excuse by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      My family is also a lot happier when I'm gaming instead of spending time with them.

      That's what "quality time" is about, right?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:no excuse by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 1

      There's no excuse for making gamers spend time with their families on Christmas, damn it.

      Unless of course, your family wants to watch something on Netflix on Christmas day, but can't because using Netflix on your PS3 inexplicably requires you to be signed into PSN.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    4. Re: no excuse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not on Christmas, but yesterday afternoon I played Mario Kart 8 online with my mom and brother for the first time. My family's in Ohio, while my wife and I are in Colorado. We set up a video call and played for a couple of hours. Between the game and the real-time voice and video, it felt like we were all in the same room. Unfortunately, they kept having technical issues and had to quit early. Still, I'm grateful that Nintendo's network was (mostly?) up. We could have made due with just a Skype call, but the game facilitated all kinds of interesting conversation.

  6. Great strategy for Sony... by tlambert · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Great strategy for Sony...

    (1) Retroactive tax write-off
    (2) Increased damages claims against the perpetrators
    (3) Marketing opportunity
    (4) Increased sales due to putative discount, front-loaded into the post-Christmas slump quarter

    What's not to like about this for Sony?

    1. Re:Great strategy for Sony... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (2) Increased damages claims against the perpetrators

      Because LizardSquad has deep pockets? Where do you guys come up with this stuff?

    2. Re:Great strategy for Sony... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      As we have learned, aptly enough from exactly the hack, inflated damages aren't inflated because they think the target would have deep enough pockets to even remotely ponder thinking about considering paying a fraction thereof. It's all part of the shock and awe strategy.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:Great strategy for Sony... by tlambert · · Score: 1

      As we have learned, aptly enough from exactly the hack, inflated damages aren't inflated because they think the target would have deep enough pockets to even remotely ponder thinking about considering paying a fraction thereof. It's all part of the shock and awe strategy.

      It also builds political capital for the prosecutors and law enforcement, etc., involved in pursuing the case, making it more likely to be pursued vigorously, and it's part of what gets written off the taxes as capital losses. It also moves the crime up the penalty ladder to "teach 'them' a lesson". All benefits to Sony.

  7. Of course they're offering peace by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    They're offering peace to their customers in the form of more golden showers.

  8. Why the anger ... by MacTO · · Score: 0

    Sony is extending memberships to account for the downtime and offering a discount on top of that, for a type of "hacking" that they can only marginally protect themselves from. Yeah, it inconvenienced *some* PSN members by reducing their enjoyment of the service over the holidays. On the other hand, I suspect that many Sony employees had a much less pleasurable time of cleaning up the mess.

    1. Re:Why the anger ... by GNious · · Score: 1

      The estimated costs (estimated by others) for the PS+ extension, is ca 5 mill USD. Add in the cost of the 10% discount.
      Question is now, does this cost more, or less, than implementing a design where a (regional?) PSN server-set is not a single-point-of-failure for every online game?

      Even when signed in, I could not play any games, due to a too-tight reliance on PSN's services.

    2. Re:Why the anger ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "for a type of "hacking" that they can only marginally protect themselves from."

      Maybe they could use some of their billions for a few extra honeypots? Na.... They're the type who uses 1 ply paper in the corporate rest rooms.

    3. Re:Why the anger ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LizardSquad stopped the DDOS on Christmas Day. Five days later, Sony claimed they had restored PSN service.

      They're lying about the DDOS given that it ended days before they were able to get the service running, and that's why they're trying to get customers back. Xbox Live was back as soon as LizardSquad gave up, PSN - not so much.

    4. Re:Why the anger ... by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      On the other hand, I suspect that many Sony employees had a much less pleasurable time of cleaning up the mess.

      Payback for the CD Rootkit they infected millions with is sweet irony. I cry tears of joy every time I hear about Sony getting hacked. No company deserves it more.

    5. Re:Why the anger ... by Kohath · · Score: 0

      Because of Sony haters. And entitlement mentality. Sony was a victim of this attack. They don't need anyone's sympathy, but they shouldn't be treated like they did something wrong in this incident. It's not like there are simple countermeasures to prevent or fix DDoS attacks.

    6. Re:Why the anger ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They're lying about the DDOS given that it ended days before they were able to get the service running, and that's why they're trying to get customers back. Xbox Live was back as soon as LizardSquad gave up, PSN - not so much.

      Or LizardSquad is lying?

    7. Re:Why the anger ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why would LizardSquad lie about stopping the attacks? It's Sony, LizardSquad is infinitely more trustworthy than Sony is.

    8. Re:Why the anger ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For LOLs

    9. Re:Why the anger ... by CronoCloud · · Score: 1

      Even when signed in, I could not play any games, due to a too-tight reliance on PSN's services.

      "Any" games? Or just multiplayer ones, because single player games and single-player modes worked just fine. I played Diablo UEE on the PS4 during some of the outage, it defaulted to LAN mode when it couldn't reach PSN.

    10. Re:Why the anger ... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I feel like quoting Thomas Hesse (who was their President of Global Digital Business during the Rootkit distribution) again: "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

      Well, judging from how little the average manager knows about IT, I can deduce that they don't even know what a DDoS is either.

      Well? Do you care about it?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    11. Re:Why the anger ... by GNious · · Score: 1

      Even when signed in, I could not play any games, due to a too-tight reliance on PSN's services.

      "Any" games? Or just multiplayer ones, because single player games and single-player modes worked just fine. I played Diablo UEE on the PS4 during some of the outage, it defaulted to LAN mode when it couldn't reach PSN.

      Sorry, I was less-than-clear in that statement: I could not play any ONLINE games(*) due to [..] PSN - see previous sentence pointing to PSN being a single-point-of-failure specifically for online games(*).

      *: online-only; I do not have any online-games for PS4, where a single-player component can be played offline, though I do have a game where the single-player component requires PSN access (Destiny)

    12. Re:Why the anger ... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      Yes their are, at least if you have a size like Sony.

      There are two distinct kinds of DDoS. First, attacks that rely on a weakness in the software used or its configuration. They use bugs in software or flaws in implementations or protocols to overload the system. Not by flooding it with traffic, but by clogging other resources, e.g. ram or ports. An example for such an attack would be Slowloris, targeting webservers, but there are others (let's be blunt here, TCP is far from DoS-proof in most implementations). That needs little bandwidth on the attacker's side, and it actually doesn't even produce a lot of traffic.

      The other kind is what we usually think about when hearing DDoS, i.e. lots and lots of packets stuffed into the pipe of the target computer until it croaks under the load. Such attacks are harder to mitigate but far from impossible. There are various ways to execute such an attack, and in general what is done here is to spoof a request with the target computer's IP as the sender, where the request uses little bandwidth but the reply would use lots of it. DNS spoof attacks are the most common kind in that respect (and, bluntly again, how long 'til we finally switch to something more secure than UDP for a critical web infrastructure tool like DNS? It really boggles the mind).

      All those reflected DDoS attacks have one thing in common: When you know what's hitting you, you can rather easily react to it. Usually, though, this requires the aid of your upstream provider, and depending on the size of the attack this can well mean that you have to deal with entities that don't really give half a shit about you if you're some local provider who has a few 1000 customers in some remote area on this planet. Then, you're up a certain creek without propelling tools. But we're not talking about miniISP here, this is Sony. And I highly doubt that Sony could not get adequate aid if they really wanted to get it.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    13. Re:Why the anger ... by Kohath · · Score: 1

      Like I said, no simple countermeasures.

      Please cite some examples of similar services that were attacked by a similar attack and managed to stay up and still be useful to the users. I don't doubt it's possible. But let's see some examples.

    14. Re:Why the anger ... by rossz · · Score: 1

      PSN has absolutely nothing to do with Sony Pictures. They happened to be owned by the same multi-national corporation, but don't share a damn thing.

      --
      -- Will program for bandwidth
    15. Re:Why the anger ... by stealth_finger · · Score: 1

      PSN has absolutely nothing to do with Sony Pictures. They happened to be owned by the same multi-national corporation, but don't share a damn thing.

      Other than a common name and association.

      --
      Wanna buy a shirt?
      https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
    16. Re:Why the anger ... by Opportunist · · Score: 1

      I cannot. For obvious reasons.

      No company wants their customers to know that they're under attack. There is some diffuse distrust when someone is telling you that they're currently or even constantly besieged by bad guys. People don't like to hear that. They want to hear that everything's peachy and that nothing could possibly harm the service they are about to sign up for. So if they successfully mitigate the attack and have it fail, you will not hear about it.

      Even if I potentially knew about a possible attack happening, maybe right now, to some important service, you could rest assured that I'd be under some kind of "we get to kill your firstborn if you even think about blabbing" NDA.

      You only get to hear about something like that when there's no chance anymore to hush it up because it gets obvious. Everything below that is "technical difficulties" that "we are working on".

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    17. Re:Why the anger ... by Fulminata · · Score: 1

      No one with any decision making ability at Sony was inconvenienced by the outage on Christmas.

      It was the grunts, doing the same kinds of jobs that most of the people posting here do, who had to go in and try to fix it instead of spending the day with their families.

  9. A Token Offering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    5 extra days and a 10% discount because one of the largest gaming companies out of a multi-billion dollar industry couldn't keep out a few script kiddies during the most important time of the year? Ahahahahahaa No. Fuck you SONY! Take your security seriously for once and stop treating customers like sheep.

    1. Re:A Token Offering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Take your security seriously for once and stop treating customers like sheep.

      If the customers keep willingly subjecting themselves to the treatment, doesn't that kinda make them... sheep?

    2. Re: A Token Offering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wake up sheeple!

    3. Re: A Token Offering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't wake up the sheeple.

    4. Re: A Token Offering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, I was referring to my pet ocelot, Sheeple. He's been napping all day and I have to give him his antilibidinal pills, so he won't fuck the couch pillows in the middle of the night. No idea why I thought posting that here would get him up, though.

  10. hahaha by drinkypoo · · Score: 1

    For Playstation Plus subscribers, Sony is offering a 5-day membership extension, and for all members, a 10 percent discount at the PlayStation store, according to a blog post published Thursday.

    Not all days are created equal, Sony. And ten percent is deeply insulting.

    --
    "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    1. Re:hahaha by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 2

      Not all days are created equal, Sony. And ten percent is deeply insulting.

      ^ This... times ten...

      While Sony may not "legally" owe anything due to the EULA...

      There is the practical matter of keeping customers happy...

      While life will move on, how about a straight $10 PSN credit to be used on anything we want? Either a 20% discount on a $50 game or a free $10, however you want it.

      That would mean more to me personally.

      A discount just says "give us even more money", but a credit, even if a small one, says "here is some of our money for your trouble".

    2. Re:hahaha by Richard_at_work · · Score: 2

      So just what should a business be on the hook for when a third party decides to criminally disrupt their legal right to do business, in such a way that is very hard to mitigate due to the sheer low level aspect of the disruption?

      I'm probably not following the group think here, but I don't think Sony should *have* to offer anything - get the "hackers" to refund you your lost subscription time if you really want someone to pay, they were the news responsible for you not being able to use the service.

    3. Re:hahaha by Rashdot · · Score: 1

      Hahaha indeed. My son couldn't even subscribe for 5 days, let alone use his new PS4. It started working after applying an "MTU 1473" fix I found somewhere. Subscribers only means that we don't get anything for our trouble.

      --
      This is not the sig you're looking for.
    4. Re:hahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We live in a world with a "entitlement" generation. The group think demands all music, books, software, games, and movies be free to everyone. Never once acknowledging that those creating the music, books, software, games, and movies want to be compensated for their efforts and recoup the expenses incurred during the creation process. The rants against anyone denying there demands is getting more ridiculous everyday. Nobody is forced to buy entertainment or particular software or hardware products.

    5. Re:hahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A paid service is not an entitlement.

    6. Re:hahaha by ruir · · Score: 1

      When you can prove me the money will actually start going to those doing the creation and not the middle men...the talk about recouping costs is just bullshit. Pure bullshit to justify draconian DRM and strong arming unfair protectionist laws. As you say nobody is forcing to buy nothing, or should not be, because, politicians have been bribed to charge as a fee for DVDs and now RAM in devices, treating us as pirates and being forced to see movies and music, apparently. And now that bullshit as Obama declaring war as proxy from Sony?...Tell me about an entitled generation. What I am actually against is the tendency to pay inflated money for films and books, and worse yet, not actually own them, but rent them. The fact is the media cartels are not interested in the e-media for now, as it is a drawback to selling physical media while the market is dying, and then they complain customers are not interest in a dying market model. And they then strong-arm and bribe politicians for a situation caused by their own incompetency. Face it, movies are terribly expensive. The price on the Apple store for a movie should be the price that is charged to rent it for 24h/48h - no thanks, I prefer to watch chinese and korean movies at the moment. The ebooks price are too high, with a few indie exceptions that I have been actually buying. Music the same - I prefer to hear it on youtube. Software, I have actually spent some money in that, the prices are normally reasonable and often I get to pay directly the author and not to some media moguls. (talking about books, do you know that aside some indie outlets, authors are ripped off and only get 5%-10% of the net profits? - and lets not start about net profits being cooked )

    7. Re:hahaha by ruir · · Score: 1

      oh yeah, you precious entiltled flock, pay our extortionist fee, watch x-factor and shut up your communist mouth.

  11. Counter offer by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 3, Funny

    I have a counter offer for Sony. When they cease to exist, I will stop hating and boycotting them.

  12. Lizard Squad's impact on Steam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://i.imgur.com/k1L6dls.png

    1. Re:Lizard Squad's impact on Steam by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why couldn't you just write that instead of making it into an obnoxious infographic?

  13. Love It! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The dimwitted and angry Xbox/Dreamcast troll pretends to be 'outraged'.

    Absolutely hilarious how butthurt your retarded fanboy ass must be over the PS4 being the fastest selling console in history.

    Let those bitter tears rain!

  14. The joy of required network by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yet another occasion were I want to play the games I "purchased", but can't.

  15. What about The Interview? by ahabswhale · · Score: 0

    When are they going to make it right for the fact they made The Interview available for XBox users before PS users? That's a huge slap in the face. I won't buy any of their consoles going forward.

    --
    Are agnostics skeptical of unicorns too?
  16. Nothing = Nothing by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    In other words, Sony gave them nothing.

  17. Always lame compensation by Theovon · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of a recent bad experience with Jet Blue. Not only was the flight an hour late, but when we arrived, they lost our stroller, which we had to check at the gate. We ended up leaving about 2 hours late. If it weren't for the constant screaming of our 2-year-old, that wouldn't have been so bad. I realize that people deal with a lot worse, but the $30 off our "next" flight was really lame, considering that we're unlikely to be flying with them again within the year they give us to redeem it. Really, all that discount is is lock-in to ensure they get more of our business, which makes it not really a discount.

  18. A New Update Is Available by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You must perform a system update in order to continue.

    Please, fuck off for the next 30 minutes! Your system will reboot.

  19. Question by SuperKendall · · Score: 0

    Since you are boycotting them how again were YOU hurt by the PSN outage?

    Oh right, you just are one of those people that exist to be outraged. If it were not Sony, it would be someone else (and probably is also as people filled with hate, end up hating everything).

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sony is around the top of the list of "companies worth hating."

    2. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll never forgive them for letting Zoran Lazarevic kill Jeff the cameraman.

    3. Re:Question by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because they want to get paid for their products, and it's not as easy for them to rely on law enforcement to prevent people from walking off with it without paying.

    4. Re:Question by duke_cheetah2003 · · Score: 1

      Since you are boycotting them how again were YOU hurt by the PSN outage?

      Sony deserves hatred. And they have hurt me, by filling my news pages with their ineptitude of being hacked, what, two, three times in 2014 alone? Go away Sony and go away Sony lover.

  20. somebody bought sony products? by crispytwo · · Score: 1

    Does that happen still?
    Wow!

  21. ubisoft gave away far cry 4 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's right assassins creed unity had some problems so for the hassle just like that bam a free new game . PlayStation is bs for there lame so called gifts . Very disappointed . Thanks for nothing

  22. They have nothing to apologize for by DrXym · · Score: 1

    A bunch of dicks launched a DDOS attack on them. They're victims as much as their own customers. I appreciate their gesture but I wasn't expecting anything at the same time.

    1. Re:They have nothing to apologize for by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are they? If they were not dicks when it comes down to shafting customers and so lax about their IT and security as it shows after being hacked several times...and invested and paid well to IT people...just maybe, maybe that would not happen. Corporate America, so nice.

    2. Re:They have nothing to apologize for by MidSpeck · · Score: 1

      Except for Sony is not headquartered in America.

  23. Sony lost me a long time ago by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    After putting root kits on legally purchased DVD's and funding the MPAA and RIAA lawsuits, Sony lost me a long time ago. I still have an old PS3, and when it dies, it won't get replaced.

  24. ps4 customer service by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This is the second time i am having to ship my system back for repair. I have spent a total of over 3 1/2 hrs on the phone on hold, just got the phone with them again and im going to say to PLAYSTATION that your service and the ps4 have not lives up to my expectations.Not to mention its not been working at all since dec.24. I hope someone at ps reads this and gets off there asses and learn to treat their customers with a little more respect. I have spent a ton of money on sony products in my life but i think i am done with you PLAYSTATION. IF YOU WANT TO CONTACT ME FEEL FREE TO DO SO. jaman_cindy@yahoo.com

  25. 1/7/2015 @1:17 am est... network down yet again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have been trying to log into my ps3 so I can watch some Netflix before bed. However, the network is down yet again. It's been like this for me since sometime in December, and especially over the holiday's. I am not happy at all and now I read everyone got a 5 day Playstation plus extension? I have 2 accounts and each of my kids have one. None of us got any sort of extension on our plus accounts.... and we pay for 4 plus subscriptions every month. Additionally, with all the money I already spend (we have 3 ps3 ' s and 1 ps4 plus tons of games for each) I think Sony can do much better than to offer 10% off in the store. I already spent over $700 this holiday season getting our ps4 and 6 games for it, plus the avatar ion plus subscriptions. I am beyond pissed at this point when I can't even log in to use or enjoy the items I have spent so much money on. He'll with the 10% discount. I already spent enough money for stuff I can't use and at this point we all deserve better than what Sony offered. I am not spending more money and none of my family members received 5 days of the Playstation plus so this level me very irate with Sony and their lack of customer support. Shame on them!

  26. Play Station by thuongsykx · · Score: 1

    Over play station. the fifa online is games likes at Viet Nam. http://nosefrida.vn/

    --
    http://chanhdaomy.com/