Internet gamers were frustrated last week when Sony shut down its PlayStation Network. Now, they might have reason to be worried.
On Monday, the Japanese electronics giant said it is keeping its PlayStation Network videogame service offline indefinitely following a hacking attack it now says may have compromised user’s information.
To ensure the network’s integrity, Sony said it is currently rebuilding the service, which connects more than 75 million PlayStation customers over the Internet, letting them play videogames and chat together. “This is a time intensive process and we’re working to get them back online quickly,” Sony spokesman Patrick Seybold said in a blog post.
Sony is still investigating the “external intrusion” that forced the electronics giant to shut down its network last Wednesday. In an email, the company also said it is also trying to figure out if any personal information, such as credit card numbers, may have been compromised in the attack.
Last week’s outage came at a particularly bad time for the videogame giant. Many of its teenage customers were hoping to virtually punch, kick and choke each other in new videogames, including Warner Bros. Entertainment’s Mortal Kombat, over the three-day Eastern weekend.
Instead, many of them griped on Facebook, Twitter and even the Digits Blog. Many of the upset gamers said they wanted more transparency from Sony as the process of rebuilding its service continues. Others threatened to switch sides, as it were, and join Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, which largely offers the same features as the PlayStation Network.
Not all gamers were distraught and some said the furor was over the top. “You would have thought the world had just ended,” Matt, a commenter on the Digits blog, wrote.
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