After Outage, Sony Makes Peace Offering To Users of PlayStation Network 95
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."
Lame (Score:1, Informative)
They're really skimping now.
Re:Lame (Score:4, 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 [youtu.be].
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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.
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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...
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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?
Re:Lame (Score:5, 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"
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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
Re:Lame (Score:4, 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.
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wParam's at VT, those were the days...
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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).
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Re: Lame (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?
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Complain away.. this is NOT a free service.
They lock you out of hosting your own server so you have to subscribe to PSN.
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Isn't that pretty much what Sony are saying [playstation.com] 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 dow
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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 con
Yeah keep it... (Score:1)
Fix your security issues instead, and stop blaming 3rd world nations for your own incompetence.
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What?
Security = Confidentiality + Integrity + Availability
Resistance to a D-DoS attack is absolutely security.
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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.
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This is about the ddos of Sony Playstation Network, not about the hack of Sony Pictures Entertainment.
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"Sony"
Great! (Score:1)
Great!
"Sorry you couldn't play the games and hardware you paid for, please buy more from us at a marginal discount."
Seppuku (Score:3, Funny)
Think about it.
no excuse (Score:5, Insightful)
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Some of us spent quality time with our families by gaming, you insensitive clod.
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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?
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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.
Great strategy for Sony... (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?
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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.
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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.
Of course they're offering peace (Score:1)
They're offering peace to their customers in the form of more golden showers.
Why the anger ... (Score:1)
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.
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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.
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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.
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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)
Re:Why the anger ... (Score:4, 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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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 implementation
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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.
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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 att
hahaha (Score:2)
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.
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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".
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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.
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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.
Counter offer (Score:4, Funny)
I have a counter offer for Sony. When they cease to exist, I will stop hating and boycotting them.
Question (Score:1)
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).
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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.
What about The Interview? (Score:1)
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.
Nothing = Nothing (Score:1)
Always lame compensation (Score:2)
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. Real
somebody bought sony products? (Score:2)
Does that happen still?
Wow!
They have nothing to apologize for (Score:2)
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Play Station (Score:1)