Report: Sony plans to restart PSN services 'fully' by May 31

by Ludwig Kietzmann on May 9th 2011 8:30AM

While Sony works to restore components of PlayStation Network and its Qriocity music service, a Tokyo-based representative of the company projects that both will be fully restored by the end of May. Speaking to Bloomberg, Shigenori Yushida stated that a complete reboot of Sony's online suite would be initiated by May 31. What exactly comes on before then remains to be seen.

Sony aimed to re-launch some services (including Home, chat functionality and friends lists) during last week, but delayed its plans in order to finalize testing of what it claims is a reconstructed and more secure network. For the time being, Sony will likely focus on getting new PS3 firmware out to allow users to update their usernames and passwords, and restoring online gaming, which has been deactivated since April 20.

Since then, PS3 versions of big releases like Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat have been locked out of online play. To make the timing especially awkward, Splash Damage's multiplayer-focused shooter, Brink, is making its debut this week.

Via: Eurogamer
Source: Bloomberg
More coverage: Joystiq's extensive coverage of the PSN outage

Tags: playstation, ps3, psn, psn-outage-2011, qriocity

Reader Comments (222)

May 31? That's... a long way. ):

@Dragonzors
...2011???

@Trilancer ... ho ho ho.. das funny because its still the first half of 2011....
imagine that being said by the foreign guy from family....funny?

@stevo13344 ... *Family Guy*..... CRAP!!! now I'm going to get down voted.

@stevo13344 You thought the show was called 'Family Funny'?

@Hoops

I think the real issue may be that he thought Family Guy was actually funny.

@baby sea tuna Ho Ho HO das funny because the show is not funny at all and is actually racist and uses the same 2 jokes about OJ and Micheal J Fox for the last 14 years!

Imagine that done by the voice of me, a guy being sarcastic and who really hates that show.

@Cavall

Can't we just agree that Family Guy stopped being funny years ago?

@jph89 Full agreement.

@Cavall Wow, somebody is on a crazy downvote streak.

I do agree though, Family Guy stopped being funny after it was originally canceled, and has sucked ever since it was brought back.

@Dragonzors can anybody think of a way to put some oressure on them to put the gamming on at least

@Trilancer Lmao!

@Dragonzors yeppir! 3 weeks, amigo.

@baby sea tuna...haters

@Dragonzors

YEA!.. It Better Be Worth THe Wait!... HOOK IT UP PSN!!....HURRRRRRY!

The past two weeks they've told us it will be back up by "The end of this week," both times failing to deliver. Now they're telling us we have to wait another *month*!?

@BlueRajasmyk In their defense it does seem like some features will be activated beforehand, just not everything. I know its not clear, but hopefully multiplayer will be back sooner than later.

@BlueRajasmyk If you actually read the thing where they said parts of it would be up within a week, they said full functionality would be up by the end of the month.
Ie: This is nothing new. Sony is just repeating themselves.

@BlueRajasmyk Please not the "FULLY" in the title. Sony said they would try to have SOME functionality (ie. online) ready last week and that restoring it FULLY would take much more time. So in that sense, not much has changed. They are still commited to giving as SOME ASAP and restoring it fully by the end of the month. There's nothing new here, really.

@BlueRajasmyk This will take some time and it's no excuse on Sony's front, but they essentially have to rebuild the entire structure of the PSN network and on top of that their SOE networks were exposed as well.
Online play should be back way before the 31st but everything transaction based will clearly take a while to get back up and running...safely.

@BlueRajasmyk
Another month?
Hate to break it to you but this is May, not April.

@BlueRajasmyk
If it helps, they can cancel Home.. doesn't have about 4 users yet reserves 10Gb of HDD space

Man i really hope i can play Brink online this week.

@SgtDookie I already canceled my preorder for it, I'm just going to get it for xbox now.

@CCon99

Been seriously thinkin about switching my pre-order over to the PC version.Sadly i have no 360.

@CCon99

The fact that people can now say "screw that, I'm getting __ game for the 360 instead of the PS3" without any bias or fanboyism factoring in is a bad sign for the PS3.

@SgtDookie You can , the 360 version won't have any issues.

@JasonA

People who have both systems never really had much fanboyism in the first place. It's the people who only buy one system who feel a huge need to justify it.

@(Unverified)

would you prefer that I just don't use my PS3? I'm so confused.

@SgtDookie I'm just glad your SP character development carries over into MP. I'll still be picking up my PS3 version tomorrow.

@JasonA Not really. Brink will suck anyway. Now it will suck in LIVE only.

What exactly do the plan on not 'fully' restoring initially?
I can't imagine they're really going to allow the multiplayer capabilities to completely languish for nearly a month and a half.

I can only imagine that they would be keeping the store shuttered for longer than the MP services. What else would they even have to delay? Netflix already works. The browser isn't tied to the PSN is it? Does Hulu still work?

I see your 23mil and raise you the internet.

@Z3NBUDDHA

HACKERZ STOLE MY PSN AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS STUPID T-SHIRT

@Spookimitsu

Better hope they didn't take THAT to.

Yeah yep. It would be nice if they made some changes besides upgrading security. I guess we all shall see...

Yeah, if it makes it until May 31st, I'm not sure 2 free games and 1 month of PSN+ will satisfy me...

Well, unless "some services" means that everything is before May 31st except for Home. I'd be okay with that.

@ilduce620 I think they also need to throw in scheduled downloading of firmware and game updates for everybody. Not just PS+ members.

@ObiBen8 That, I could get behind. Especially if Sony is serious about security updates in the future.

If you recall, Windows XP was a security-ridden mess early on, until SP2 when Microsoft closed up a bunch of holes, AND was more active in getting users to download security updates in a timely manner, including turning on the Automatic Update feature that was not turned on by default originally. Sony should do the same thing with PSN: force automatic updates, and allow them to be downloaded in the background. And it should be done for Firmware AND for games.

That is, if they are serious about fixing their security problems. It should absolutely be a free update for everyone, not just a PSN+ service.

@ObiBen8 if that was the case id just cancel my PS+ thats one of the biggest reasons for me to get PS+, so if they gave it free id cancel

@ilduce620

You have to update if you want to connect to PSN already.

@Lucky48

Cloud saving was another reason but that came out after I started. TBH I already own a good chunk of games thats on the PSN so half the stuff they give away or discounted I already owned. I just wish Cloud Saving came out before my first PS3 died....

@ilduce620
"Yeah, if it makes it until May 31st, I'm not sure 2 free games and 1 month of PSN+ will satisfy me... "

If my identity was stolen or my credit card defrauded, I know 2 free games and 1 month of PSN+ will not satisfy me.

@erh I agree with you to an extent. I still think that the statistical likelihood of my personal information being stolen is small, but that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. At least Sony is bucking up for a year of credit card/identity theft monitoring, though that should have started from Day One, imho.

But yeah, at this point, I'm more concerned with the fact that my PS3 could be useless as an internet-capable gaming console from April 20th until May 31st, which is an obscene length of time. I think that amount of downtime deserves more than just one month of PSN+ and two free games (from a list of 5...assuming NA gets what Europe got).

Of course, if my identity is stolen, I'm sure I'll feel differently!

I really wanna try socom online. Please hurry the hell up. I feel like a Christian at lent and it's not good.

Pours out a lil mtn. dew for my PS3 brethren, you guys are going through some difficult sh!t, you def have my support. Sure Sony is attempting to fix it, but I want to do something, maybe we could gather up a couple awesome people and do something cool, maybe a collage of indie developed games or something similar.

calm blue ocean....calm blue ocean....calm blue ocean....
calm blue ocean....calm blue ocean....calm blue ocean....

F***IN' WAAAAAAH!!!

You've heard it a billion times before, but I'll say it again. I hope they take their time so that nothing could possibly go wrong.

And I hope that at least online play is back up by Brink's release. I know a few people that preordered it for PS3, and they'll be so mad if they can't play it online.

@FEARtheone24 Yup, that would really be messed up to get a MP heavy game and not have a network to play it on! I had to switch my pre-order from PS3 to 360 just to be sure...

@FEARtheone24

I think this qualifies as taking their time, so you're getting your wish.

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Report: Sony plans to restart PSN services 'fully' by May 31

Reader Comments (222)

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:35AM Dragonzors said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:19AM Trilancer said

Posted: May 9th 2011 10:23AM stevo13344 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 10:25AM stevo13344 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 10:58AM Hoops said

Posted: May 9th 2011 11:11AM baby sea tuna said

Posted: May 9th 2011 11:18AM Cavall said

Posted: May 9th 2011 11:30AM jph89 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 11:44AM Cavall said

Posted: May 9th 2011 12:08PM Hoops said

Posted: May 9th 2011 2:25PM calidave said

Posted: May 9th 2011 2:57PM JGray73 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 7:18PM BiggRapp313 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 7:31PM stevo13344 said

Posted: May 10th 2011 11:59AM swagster1972 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:36AM BlueRajasmyk said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:39AM Snide Jackal said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:48AM Protome said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:50AM Dark Archon PSN Archonik XBL Dar said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:58AM whookid said

Posted: May 9th 2011 11:14AM DreadArrow said

Posted: May 9th 2011 1:54PM Mazrael said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:36AM SgtDookie said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:47AM CCon99 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:54AM SgtDookie said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:58AM JasonA said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:20AM kcswanko said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:58AM Arcaria said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:37AM eat it said

Posted: May 9th 2011 11:24AM End User said

Posted: May 10th 2011 5:26AM Quest said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:37AM DenebSwift said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:37AM Z3NBUDDHA said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:41AM Spookimitsu said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:56AM Z3NBUDDHA said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:39AM jonmaz said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:39AM ilduce620 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:48AM ObiBen8 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:51AM ilduce620 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:13AM Quayle said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:26AM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: May 9th 2011 9:35AM Quayle said

Posted: May 9th 2011 10:32AM erh said

Posted: May 9th 2011 10:36AM ilduce620 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:40AM PSBuckshot said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:40AM hellohello said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:40AM prodigy69 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:41AM FEARtheone24 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 8:49AM Dukk420 said

Posted: May 9th 2011 12:14PM Truant said

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