Martyn Williams over at PCWorld is reporting that Sony has announced it expects the PSN hack to cost it $170 million this fiscal year. The company is to offer users in many countries a free year long identity theft insurance policy as well as free games as part of its Welcome Back Package. The cost includes all these issues together according to Sony’s CFO Masaru Kato.

These will be put into Sony’s current fiscal year that ends on March 31.The company expects to announce a record net loss of $3.2 billion for the fiscal year that has just ended and is due to charges with US GAAP.

The terrible events in March happened only three weeks before the end of the financial year so didn’t have much of an impact for Sony’s financial performance for that year. But the earthquake did make the company’s Japanese operations run at a loss.

Sony are set to report an operating profit of around ¥200 billion but it is the GAAAP charges which turn it into a loss. The earthquake and Tsunami resulted in Sony’s sales dropping by ¥22 billion with a further ¥17 billion in costs related to the disaster.

More About: PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

The news is according to Cnet, as they have published an ‘exclusive’ report, stating that information was acquired via the hacker’s IRC (Internet Relay Chat) channel, revealing that yet another attack is in the pipeline against Sony.

It will apparently take place over the weekend and may reveal user’s credit card information and other personal information such as addresses and full names. Even more worrying, the report also adds that the hackers have admin access to Sony’s servers, suggesting that the company are wide open for another attack.

At least this information has been brought to public knowledge and Sony can now prepare for it if the details are true. However, it doesn’t look good for Sony’s last estimation on the PlayStation Network being back online sometime this week. This has gone on long enough it seems, and now these fresh details have come out – it doesn’t look good.

What are your thoughts on this reported third attack? Do you think Anonymous are connected with it?

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

We first informed you about this news here, as it was confirmed by Sony when they wrote a letter to the US Congress subcommittee informing them that a file had been located on their servers with the words ‘Anonymous’ and ‘We are Legion’. Read the documents in full here if you’re interested.

This now means that they are behind the attack, and it’s likely that a few ‘anon’ members have taken things into their own hands, despite an initial announcement by the group’s ”leader” or spokesman stating the outage wasn’t caused by them. Don’t forget that Anonymous itself is made up of a group of randoms, so there is no actual control over any individuals actions – which is probably what has happened here.

Now that this is public knowledge, what is your reaction to this, knowing that the outage is now going past the two week mark. Anonymous were being highlighted as a group of amateurs, but it’s clear that they definitely know what they are doing in the hacking department if they have the ability to plant files deep within Sony’s ‘highly encrypted’ servers.

Unfortunately, we still don’t know exactly when the PSN will be back up, as Sony are probably working with the law to get to the bottom of this and trying to track down some of these infamous anonymous members. Let us know your thoughts on this new intel, and what you think should be done about it. Are you beyond mad now?

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

According to Patrick Seybold (Senior Director, Corporate Communications and Social Media) over on the blog.us.playstation.com website, Kazuo Hirai – the Chairman of the Board of Directors at Sony Computer Entertainment of America – gave written answers to the questions that were posed.

The subcommittee asked Hirai questions about the criminal cyber-attack that Sony has recently experienced. Sony told the subcommittee that they followed four key principles when dealing with the cyber attack. The first of these was to act with care and attention.

The other key principles were to provide the public with relevant information once it was verified, take responsibility for their obligations to customers and to work with the law enforcement authorities. Sony said they had been the victims of a very carefully planned and highly sophisticated attack.

Sony also informed the subcommittee that they discovered that the attackers had planted a file on one of its SOE servers called ‘Anonymous,’ with the words “We are legion.” Sony also said that as of today, major credit card firms had not reported any fraudulent transactions believed to have been a direct result of the recent cyber attack.

You can read more about the hearing via the blog.us.playstation.com website. What do you think about Sony’s responses to the questions?

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, Sony Playstation 3

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

There were previous rumors of a new firmware update coming soon to the PS3, and this has now been confirmed to be firmware update 3.61 as stated on the Japanese PlayStation website, as reported from TerminalGamer. Through the magic of Google Translate, we’ve learned that users will also need to change their password once they have signed into PSN.

Despite previous rumors stating otherwise, the Japanese PS site also states that PSN is still offline in Japan and that the service ‘will resume soon’. You can read the translated text in full here if you’re interested.

This information has yet to be posted on the US or EU PlayStation Blogs, so perhaps Sony is intending to switch PSN back online first in Japan, followed by other regions. Aside from the much talked about compensation package that Sony are offering to PS3 users, we hope that firmware 3.61 adds some extra functionality to the XMB – cross game chat support would be a lovely way of saying sorry, what do you think?

So to sum up, the PSN is still down, but you will get a nice new firmware to play around with when it does finally return. Let us know your thoughts on this.

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

In a surprising twist of events, Sony has now said that they have had to close down their Sony Online Entertainment servers, due to a new hack that has been discovered. They also labelled it an ‘intrusion’, but the worrying aspect of this, is that they didn’t announce it at the same time the normal PSN servers went offline, rather a week later.

This leads to suggestions that Sony may have a new problem, and this is backed up by a genuine Sony confirmation that credit card information has indeed been stolen. Remember previously, they were stating that information ‘may’, or ‘ we have no reason to believe’, so this is the real deal now. Here’s a statement from the company below:

”The information from the outdated database that may have been stolen includes approximately 12,700 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers and expiration dates (but not credit card security codes), and about 10,700 direct debit records of certain customers in Austria, Germany, Netherlands and Spain.”

This passage of text has been taken from an official press release, which you can read in full over at Joystiq. They have since updated their article to inform everyone that this is not a new attack, and is part of the original attack on the PlayStation Network, but with new factors affecting the SOE servers specifically.

What are your thoughts on this? Are you optimistic that Sony will resume service on May 3rd, or not so much after this new press release by the company. 12,700 member’s card information is now in the hands of hackers – we really hope that you are not one of them.

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

The question we want to know though, is will you forgive Sony for what has happened? They have announced a compensation package for the downtime which will include a months trial of PlayStation Plus for every single PS3 user, some other free content which is region specific and also an extra 30 day subscription for those of you who are Qriocity members.

The offline time is now pushing close to two weeks, and some of you may feel that the compensation package isn’t enough, especially PlayStation Plus users. However, Sony has already said they are evaluating how to please PSN+ users, so don’t worry just yet.

How has the outage affected you? Do you forgive Sony for what has happened, or do you think it’s simply not good enough after being unable to play any online content, somes offline content too due to trophy syncing, for almost 2 weeks.

From our point of view, this is a pretty good deal for PS3 users. As we told you last week, Sony were under no obligations to offer PS3 users anything due to the outage as stated in their terms and conditions, so to get a free months trial of PlayStation Plus, you defintely can’t argue with that.

Give us your thoughts on this PS3 owners.

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Sony has published a question and answer page on its PlayStation Blog, and one questions asks if there will be some sort of gesture by the company. The answer says that Sony “are currently evaluating ways to show appreciation for your extraordinary patience”.

Whether Sony would give away some free games or expansion packs remains to be seen, but it will be interesting to see what they reveal. The company must be already losing a vast amount of money during this downtime but that will be of no concern to PS3 owners.

We could see some nice surprises from the company as they look to keep their loyal customers happy. What would you like to see Sony give away to PS3 owners in compensation to the problems caused with the PSN outage?

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

Sony has been talking in a blog post about their plans to compensate players of PS3 MMO DC Universe Online and revealed that they will be holding something known as a ‘double station cash day’ for players on April 30th – this coming Saturday, as reported from Eurogamer.

This information was revealed by SOE director of community relations Linda Carlson, as she added below:

“To thank players for their patience, and we will be hosting special events this weekend across our game portfolio, including a Double Station Cash day on Saturday, April 30th. We are also working on a ‘make good’ plan for players of the PS3 versions of DC Universe Online and Free Realms.”

You can read that information on the official DC Universe Forums here, hopefully Sony will confirm on the official PlayStation Blogs that the service will indeed be resumed by the weekend. Let us know your thoughts on this – are you looking forward to playing PS3 online again?

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad

The worst thing about this, is obviously the fact that these hackers responsible could obtain your card details and use it for other activities. Other prior hacks to the PS3 were often deemed pretty minor, but since Sony has now has admitted that credit card information could have been compromised, it now turns it into a crisis for the company.

Where does the blame lie though? Obviously, it will be good news when these hackers are caught and dealt with appropriately, but we feel there’s millions of you out there outraged with Sony that they have failed to protect their system against such attacks. This is real money we’re dealing with now, and these hackers obviously mean business by going straight for the DDOS and Credit card loopholes.

Then of course, there’s Geohot – remember him? The very individual who first opened up the PS3 fully by revealing the system’s root key online. A lot of you may be placing part of the blame with him, but given the current dire straits that Sony are in, we’d say this is irrelevant. The guy clearly knows the ins and outs of the PS3′s security methods, even more so than Sony perhaps.

If he exposed the root key and completely made a mockey of Sony’s security, would it be such a bad idea if they were to ask him for help on how to lock the PS3 up against hackers for good? He probably knows how to – but you can bet he wouldn’t dream of helping Sony now after the way they treated him during the lawsuit.

These are just a few issues for thought. Let us know your thoughts on the security issue surrounding the PS3. What solution do you have for Sony?

More About: PlayStation Network, PSN Outage, sony

For more Product-Reviews.net coverage:

• Follow Product Reviews on Twitter
• Become a Fan on Facebook
• Subscribe to PR
• Download our free apps for iPhone and iPad