Sony Says Parts of Playstation Network Will Be Back Online This Week

 

TOKYO — Sony said Sunday that parts of its PlayStation network will be back online “this week” after hackers infiltrated the service, made off with detailed personal information and forced a catastrophic system shutdown.

But it could take until the end of the month for a full reboot of the PlayStation Network, which links 77 million gamers worldwide, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company announced at a press conference in Tokyo.

“I am deeply sorry for worrying, and inconveniencing, our users,” said Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s executive deputy president, bowing deeply.

The security debacle has dealt a serious blow to Sony’s bid to build an online network that brings gaming and music content to its universe of gadgets. Sony has lagged behind in building an online presence behind the likes of Apple and its popular online iTunes and App Store services.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company has also faced questions about whether it moved quickly enough to inform its users of the breach. The PlayStation network went down on April 20, but Sony did not disclose that personal data had been stolen until a full week later.

A subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives has sent a letter to Sony asking for information about the attack, including when the intrusion occurred, if Sony knew who was responsible for the attack and when the company notified law enforcement.

According to Sony, an “unauthorized person” hacked into Sony servers last month and obtained personal information on PlayStation and Qriocity account holders, including their names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and user names and passwords for the PlayStation Network.

The company said that other confidential information, including credit card numbers, could have been compromised, warning customers to “remain vigilant” by monitoring identity theft or other financial loss.

The hacker attack targeted Sony severs over three days in mid-April, Mr. Hirai said. The company first became aware of the unauthorized access on April 19, and shut down its servers the following day.

Sony said usernames and passwords to the network were not encrypted, but the credit card information it had for about 10 million users had been encrypted and that there was yet no evidence that this data was taken.

The company was working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as legal enforcement agencies in other countries, in investigating the attack, it said.

Mr. Hirai acknowledged that Sony had been slow in providing information on the network breach to its users. It had taken the company time to gather accurate data on the breach, he explained.

“Inspecting and analyzing a vast amount of data unfortunately took a lot of time,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that the information we provided was accurate as possible.”

Mr. Hirai said that Sony’s online networks would remain central to the company’s business. Sony’s new Qriocity service, which is used to stream audio and video to high-end Sony televisions, Sony Blu-ray players and other Web-enabled Sony devices, was also knocked offline in the attack.

Once the network is up and running, Sony users will be forced to change their passwords before they can connect. Sony will offer free content and other freebies as part of an “appreciation program,” the company said.

Many features will be back up this week, but its PlayStation Store, where users buy games, movies and other downloadable content, will not be available until later this month, Sony said.

“Sony continues to place utmost priority on its network strategy,” Mr. Hirai said. “We intend to continue our global expansion.”

 

Sony Says Parts of Playstation Network Will Be Back Online This Week

 

TOKYO — Sony said Sunday that parts of its PlayStation network will be back online “this week” after hackers infiltrated the service, made off with detailed personal information and forced a catastrophic system shutdown.

But it could take until the end of the month for a full reboot of the PlayStation Network, which links 77 million gamers worldwide, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company announced at a press conference in Tokyo.

“I am deeply sorry for worrying, and inconveniencing, our users,” said Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s executive deputy president, bowing deeply.

The security debacle has dealt a serious blow to Sony’s bid to build an online network that brings gaming and music content to its universe of gadgets. Sony has lagged behind in building an online presence behind the likes of Apple and its popular online iTunes and App Store services.

The Japanese electronics and entertainment company has also faced questions about whether it moved quickly enough to inform its users of the breach. The PlayStation network went down on April 20, but Sony did not disclose that personal data had been stolen until a full week later.

A subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives has sent a letter to Sony asking for information about the attack, including when the intrusion occurred, if Sony knew who was responsible for the attack and when the company notified law enforcement.

According to Sony, an “unauthorized person” hacked into Sony servers last month and obtained personal information on PlayStation and Qriocity account holders, including their names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and user names and passwords for the PlayStation Network.

The company said that other confidential information, including credit card numbers, could have been compromised, warning customers to “remain vigilant” by monitoring identity theft or other financial loss.

The hacker attack targeted Sony severs over three days in mid-April, Mr. Hirai said. The company first became aware of the unauthorized access on April 19, and shut down its servers the following day.

Sony said usernames and passwords to the network were not encrypted, but the credit card information it had for about 10 million users had been encrypted and that there was yet no evidence that this data was taken.

The company was working with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, as well as legal enforcement agencies in other countries, in investigating the attack, it said.

Mr. Hirai acknowledged that Sony had been slow in providing information on the network breach to its users. It had taken the company time to gather accurate data on the breach, he explained.

“Inspecting and analyzing a vast amount of data unfortunately took a lot of time,” he said. “We wanted to make sure that the information we provided was accurate as possible.”

Mr. Hirai said that Sony’s online networks would remain central to the company’s business. Sony’s new Qriocity service, which is used to stream audio and video to high-end Sony televisions, Sony Blu-ray players and other Web-enabled Sony devices, was also knocked offline in the attack.

Once the network is up and running, Sony users will be forced to change their passwords before they can connect. Sony will offer free content and other freebies as part of an “appreciation program,” the company said.

Many features will be back up this week, but its PlayStation Store, where users buy games, movies and other downloadable content, will not be available until later this month, Sony said.

“Sony continues to place utmost priority on its network strategy,” Mr. Hirai said. “We intend to continue our global expansion.”

 

Sony Says PlayStation Hacker Got Personal Data

Christopher Miller’s PlayStation Portable game console had been broken for most of two years. So when his parents got him a new one for his 25th birthday on April 18, he was elated — but only briefly.

Last week, Sony’s online network for the PlayStation suffered a catastrophic failure through a hacking attack. And since then, the roughly 77 million gamers worldwide like Mr. Miller who have accounts for the service have been unable to play games with friends through the Internet or to download demos of new games.

Then, on Tuesday, after several days of near silence, Sony said that as a result of the attack, an “unauthorized person” had obtained personal information about account holders, including their names, addresses, e-mail addresses, and PlayStation user names and passwords. Sony warned that other confidential information, including credit card numbers, could have been compromised, warning customers through a statement to “remain vigilant” by monitoring identity theft or other financial loss.

Law-enforcement officials said Tuesday that Sony had reported the breach to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in San Diego, which specializes in computer crime.

The breach comes after an incident earlier this month, when Epsilon, a marketing firm that handles e-mail lists, suffered a security breach that put millions of people’s e-mail addresses at risk. In some instances, customers’ names were also stolen. Last year, an AT&T breach exposed the e-mail addresses of at least 100,000 owners of the Apple iPad.

Even before Sony’s disclosure, complaints about the system failure had been mounting on Web sites, including Sony’s own. “It’s ridiculous,” said Mr. Miller, a 3-D animation student from Saline, Mich., in an e-mail.

Other customers — who have come to take the gaming network for granted — said they were astonished by the failure’s duration and its target, Sony, a globally recognized technology company. Some suggested that the incident, already a severe blow to Sony’s reputation, would give its top video game rivals, Microsoft and Nintendo, a leg up in the console wars.

“Sony is pretty much doing everything wrong,” said Carl-Niclas Odenbring of Releasy Customer Management in Sweden, which helps companies manage social media. Mr. Odenbring said his daughter, age 6, misses playing games on her Sony console, but is now playing on an iPad.

“She doesn’t have any direct purchasing power, but her indirect influence in what my wife and I buy is enormous,” he said. “Sony is losing the battle over her.”

Last weekend, after the attack, Sony said it would rebuild the network to make it more secure. The Sony Qriocity service, which is used to stream audio and video to high-end Sony televisions, Sony Blu-ray players and other Web-enabled Sony devices, was also knocked offline.

“It is very unusual for Sony to completely rebuild a system after a security breach, rather than just stopping the bleeding and going back to some kind of restricted network,” said Mark Seiden, a longtime information security consultant. “The fact that two separate networks are involved in this security breach suggests Sony discovered a major underlying problem that already existed.”

It remains unclear who the hackers were. Anonymous, a well-known hacking group that has been blamed for previously attacking the Sony and PlayStation Web sites, denied any responsibility; the group’s Web site stated, “For once we didn’t do it.”

Last Wednesday, Sony began posting sporadic messages that the PlayStation Network was down. In its first detailed statement on the attack, Sony told its customers on Tuesday afternoon that it had discovered that an “illegal and unauthorized intrusion” into the network had taken place between April 17 and 19.

“If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number and expiration date may have been obtained,” Patrick Seybold, senior director for corporate communications at Sony, wrote in a post on the PlayStation Web site and in an e-mail to customers.

Sony representatives declined to give further details.

Sony said it expected to restore some services — but apparently not all — within a week.

Shortly after Sony’s announcement Tuesday, Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, sent a letter to Sony?asking why customers had not been notified immediately about the security breach and not told for nearly a week about the extent of the attack. Mr.?Blumenthal?also cited concerns that many PlayStation users are children.

The letter said Sony should provide PlayStation customers “financial data security services, including free access to credit reporting services.”

One group of gamers who were particularly vociferous were the members of DC Universe Online, an online game. The game has been out of operation since the attack, affecting gamers who have paid for the service for months in advance.

Other customers said they had had trouble connecting to the popular online streaming service Netflix through the PlayStation console.

Daniel McGuire, a PlayStation user in London, in an e-mail criticized Sony’s initial silence. “Most?PlayStation users would never cross over to the Xbox,” he said, referring to Microsoft’s rival console, “but this situation is pushing people. If ever Xbox wanted to snatch PlayStation?users, this would be the time.”

 

Sony ships 50 million PlayStation 3s, eight million Move controllers worldwide

PLAYSTATION?3 SALES REACH 50 MILLION UNITS WORLDWIDE

Sales of PlayStation?Move motion controller for PlayStation?3 (PS3?) surpass 8 million units worldwide, accelerating the expansion of the PS3 Platform.

Tokyo, April 15, 2011 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that the cumulative sales of the PlayStation?3 (PS3?) computer entertainment system reached a milestone of 50 million units*1 worldwide, as of March 29, 2011. SCE also announced that PlayStation?Move sales surpassed 8 million units*1 worldwide as of April 3, demonstrating
continued growth and momentum of the PS3 platform.

The PS3 system, equipped with future proof cutting–edge technologies including the powerful Cell Broadband Engine? and RSX? processors as well as the Blu-ray disc? (BD) player and HDMI, has delivered users with high-definition and high quality entertainment experience since its launch in November 2006. The PS3 system continues to evolve and enhance the user experience through new features and services delivered via software updates.

Concurrently with the introduction of PS3, SCE launched PlayStation?Network service which now has more than 75 million registered accounts and operates in 59 countries and regions*2 around the world. PlayStation Network supports free community-centric online gameplay and communication tools such as PlayStation?Home*3, and offers vast downloadable digital content through PlayStation?Store, from games to movies of more than 32,840 content totaling to 105,988 digital content worldwide. In September 2009, SCE launched the new slimmer and lighter PS3 system with new form factor and less power consumption that has been well received by users around the world.

To further expand entertainment experience only possible on PS3, stereoscopic 3D game and Blu-ray 3D? features were introduced to the system via a free system software update*4 in April and September 2010 respectively. The feature enables users to enjoy stunningly realistic stereoscopic 3D in their living room on their PS3 system by simply connecting it to a 3D-compatible TV such as 3D "BRAVIA" TV using an HDMI cable. The number of stereoscopic 3D software titles has reached to 89 as of April 1 in 2011.

SCE launched PlayStation Move in September 2010 for North America, Europe/PAL territories and in Asia, and in October 2010 for Japan to deliver a new entertainment experience across all categories of games, from casual to immersive. The PlayStation Move motion controller is used in combination with the PlayStation?Eye camera to detect the precise movement, angle, and absolute position in 3D space of the user, thereby allowing users to intuitively play as if they are within the game. The number of PlayStation Move supported/dedicated software titles has reached to 155 as of March 24 in 2011, including titles such as Sports Champions, SingStar Dance and Killzone3*5. PlayStation Move continues to further expand the new gameplay along with variety of upcoming new PlayStation Move titles for 2011including SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs*6.

With strong support from 3rdparty developers and publishers worldwide, PS3 features a vast library of more than 2,128 software titles with more than 480 million units sold worldwide*7. Recently released blockbuster franchise titles from first party studios include Grand Turismo 5, LittleBigPlanet2 and KILLZONE 3. SCE will continue to further expand the PS3 platform and create a new world of computer entertainment.

*1 Sell-in number
*2 As of Mar 20, 2011.
*3 A ground-breaking 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that allows users to interact, communicate
and share gaming experiences. Within PlayStation Home, users can create and customize their own unique
avatars and explore the virtual community in real time where they can communicate freely through text or
voice chat. When the service is available, PlayStation Home icon will appear after booting/ re-booting the PS3
system. Some content and services are charged.
*4 System software versions 3.30 or later are required.
*5 Titles and year differ by each country or region.
*6 Adapts to stereoscopic 3D games
*7 As of the end of Dec, 2010

View the original article here

Sony ships 50 million PlayStation 3s, eight million Move controllers worldwide

 
PLAYSTATION?3 SALES REACH 50 MILLION UNITS WORLDWIDE

Sales of PlayStation?Move motion controller for PlayStation?3 (PS3?) surpass 8 million units worldwide, accelerating the expansion of the PS3 Platform.

Tokyo, April 15, 2011 – Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (SCE) today announced that the cumulative sales of the PlayStation?3 (PS3?) computer entertainment system reached a milestone of 50 million units*1 worldwide, as of March 29, 2011. SCE also announced that PlayStation?Move sales surpassed 8 million units*1 worldwide as of April 3, demonstrating
continued growth and momentum of the PS3 platform.

The PS3 system, equipped with future proof cutting–edge technologies including the powerful Cell Broadband Engine? and RSX? processors as well as the Blu-ray disc? (BD) player and HDMI, has delivered users with high-definition and high quality entertainment experience since its launch in November 2006. The PS3 system continues to evolve and enhance the user experience through new features and services delivered via software updates.

Concurrently with the introduction of PS3, SCE launched PlayStation?Network service which now has more than 75 million registered accounts and operates in 59 countries and regions*2 around the world. PlayStation Network supports free community-centric online gameplay and communication tools such as PlayStation?Home*3, and offers vast downloadable digital content through PlayStation?Store, from games to movies of more than 32,840 content totaling to 105,988 digital content worldwide. In September 2009, SCE launched the new slimmer and lighter PS3 system with new form factor and less power consumption that has been well received by users around the world.

To further expand entertainment experience only possible on PS3, stereoscopic 3D game and Blu-ray 3D? features were introduced to the system via a free system software update*4 in April and September 2010 respectively. The feature enables users to enjoy stunningly realistic stereoscopic 3D in their living room on their PS3 system by simply connecting it to a 3D-compatible TV such as 3D "BRAVIA" TV using an HDMI cable. The number of stereoscopic 3D software titles has reached to 89 as of April 1 in 2011.

SCE launched PlayStation Move in September 2010 for North America, Europe/PAL territories and in Asia, and in October 2010 for Japan to deliver a new entertainment experience across all categories of games, from casual to immersive. The PlayStation Move motion controller is used in combination with the PlayStation?Eye camera to detect the precise movement, angle, and absolute position in 3D space of the user, thereby allowing users to intuitively play as if they are within the game. The number of PlayStation Move supported/dedicated software titles has reached to 155 as of March 24 in 2011, including titles such as Sports Champions, SingStar Dance and Killzone3*5. PlayStation Move continues to further expand the new gameplay along with variety of upcoming new PlayStation Move titles for 2011including SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs*6.

With strong support from 3rdparty developers and publishers worldwide, PS3 features a vast library of more than 2,128 software titles with more than 480 million units sold worldwide*7. Recently released blockbuster franchise titles from first party studios include Grand Turismo 5, LittleBigPlanet2 and KILLZONE 3. SCE will continue to further expand the PS3 platform and create a new world of computer entertainment.

*1 Sell-in number
*2 As of Mar 20, 2011.
*3 A ground-breaking 3D social gaming community available on PS3 that allows users to interact, communicate
and share gaming experiences. Within PlayStation Home, users can create and customize their own unique
avatars and explore the virtual community in real time where they can communicate freely through text or
voice chat. When the service is available, PlayStation Home icon will appear after booting/ re-booting the PS3
system. Some content and services are charged.
*4 System software versions 3.30 or later are required.
*5 Titles and year differ by each country or region.
*6 Adapts to stereoscopic 3D games
*7 As of the end of Dec, 2010