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After Outage, Sony Makes Peace Offering To Users of PlayStation Network
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."
Think about it.
Have gnu, will travel.
There's no excuse for making gamers spend time with their families on Christmas, damn it.
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?
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?
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!
I have a counter offer for Sony. When they cease to exist, I will stop hating and boycotting them.
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".
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...