PSN Down Worlwide

[nCogNeato]

... Sony has of course, disagreed, telling Eurogamer:

"We don't comment on rumours or speculation about our products."

What "rumours or speculation" are they referring to.  These are factual observations made by users and industry professionals.  

Sony is really making a bad situation worse.  If they bothered to comment at all, it should have been something along the lines of, "We are looking into the situation" ... or some crap like that.  Not total denial.

Personally, I haven't experienced my PS3 shutting down, however I do ony use it to watch movies.  I have been experiencing loud disc loading sounds when the system firsts starts up, but I just assumed it needs cleaning since it's an old model.

[Hells_JJ]

as pitiful as this it is getting to be very funny like watching the keystone cops or something like that

so to sum it up so far                            sony in a nut shell lol

[nCogNeato]

so to sum it up so far                            sony in a nut shell lol

ha

[zerosum]

Yeah, this is getting quite comical in a way. And I keep thinking - E3 is gonna be crazy interesting -  PS3 keynote presentation might just involve Sony Executives bowing for an hour and a half.

[nCogNeato]

I really hope Sony does well at E3.  If they let their horrible string of bad luck overshadow E3, I'm sure they're going to take some serious hits on the market, and people will be losing their jobs.   

[zerosum]

Not hoping for any of that either, just don't know how they get through it without addressing the issue. If they just completely ignore it with comments like "We don't comment on rumours or speculation about our products." - it's going to come off just as bad.

[nCogNeato]

Agreed.

They need to get all of this sorted before June, and give an awesome presentation on all of the free things they're going to give away.

Maybe hire Zach Galifianakis & Justin Bieber, and dress them up as Batman & Robin ... and have Zach shoot Bieber out of a cannon or something.  I'm just spitballing ideas here. 

[zerosum]

Agreed.

They need to get all of this sorted before June, and give an awesome presentation on all of the free things they're going to give away.

Maybe hire Zach Galifianakis & Justin Bieber, and dress them up as Batman & Robin ... and have Zach shoot Bieber out of a cannon or something.  I'm just spitballing ideas here. 

Out of a cannon or with one, either way that spitball has sticking power!

[Hells_JJ]

or have justin do a cover of hannas best or both worlds or katies i kissed a girl and liked it

[zerosum]

The article has nothing to do with the PSN downtime, but I thought it was kinda funny:

It figures PlayStation Network isn't even back a week and the Earth is scheduled for destruction.

[Kotaku]

Will post in the "Deals" section also.

[nCogNeato]

Sony Estimates PlayStation Network Outage To Cost $171 Million

According to Sony, the shutdown of the PlayStation Network will cost the company an estimated $171 Million. The word comes by way of a revised earnings statement Sony issued in advance of their Thursday earnings report.

According to the company, the breakdown of PSN Network Outage expenses is as follows:

The current estimated cost of the personal information theft protection program for customers. "This program includes a set amount of insurance to cover a certain amount of identity theft losses that may be incurred by our customers in certain regions within a set period with respect to misuse of their personal information."
Costs of welcome back programs that offer customers certain services (such as games, music and videos) for free
Customer support costs
Network security enhancement costs
Legal and expert costs
The impact on our profits due to a possible future revenue decrease.

There could be more costs associated with the outage, of course. As Sony itself says, laying out the possibility of losses from lawsuits, and, if it turns out people's credit card numbers were stolen, and used, that could cost Sony as well. Here's how the company laid it out:

"These amounts are our reasonable assumption based on the information currently available to Sony. So far, we have not received any confirmed reports of customer identity theft issues, nor confirmed any misuse of credit cards from the cyber-attack. Those are key variables, and if that changes, the costs could change. In addition, in connection with the data breach, class action lawsuits have been filed against Sony and certain of its subsidiaries and regulatory inquiries have begun; however, those are all at a preliminary stage, so we are not able to include the possible outcome of any of them in our results forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2012 at this moment."

[source]

[Hells_JJ]

woot password finally changed lol now for the free games even if they suck free is free 

[GamerMan316]

woot password finally changed lol now for the free games even if they suck free is free 

The games are pretty damn good, old but still good!

[nCogNeato]

[free games]

All PlayStation Network customers can select two PS3 games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

    • Dead Nation
    • inFAMOUS
    • LittleBigPlanet
    • Super Stardust HD
    • Wipeout HD + Fury

For PSP owners, you will be eligible to download two PSP games from the following list. The games will be available for 30 days shortly after PlayStation Store is restored and can be kept forever.

    • LittleBigPlanet (PSP)
    • ModNation Racers
    • Pursuit Force
    • Killzone Liberation

Since I don't own a PSP anymore, that leaves me with only the PS3 selection.
Since I already own inFAMOUS and LittleBigPlanet, that leaves me with Dead Nation, Super Stardust HD or Wipeout HD + Fury.

Wipeout HD + Fury is definitely the most valuable selection ($20 for the game + $10 for the Fury DLC).  It also has the highest metacritic score of the 3.  So that's probably my first pick, unless I absolutely hate the demo.  BONUS - It also has some of (if not) the most difficult known PS3 trophies.  Challenge accepted!  

At first glance, I would probably pick Dead Nation over Super Stardust HD, simply because I enjoy killing zombies more than flying tiny spaceships.  But I'll check out their demos before deciding.

[GamerMan316]

Infamous and either Dead Nation or Wipeout for me.