Editorial: Lessons for Sony to learn from PSN outage

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3 mins read

As the entire gaming world is aware by now, the PlayStation Network is down as Sony rebuilds and strengthens it in response to an attack.

There are lessons Sony will learn from this event – both in terms of securing down its network (an issue beyond the scope of this piece); but also in terms of dealing with its community.


From the numerous Websites, blog posts and social networks, it’s evident that many of the Sony faithful are irritated. Not so much with the fact the network is down – it’s amazing the level of support Sony has had from its fan base once they understood what was going on. The anger has been more targeted at Sony’s lines of communication to its customers.

To be frank – Sony’s done a poor job with updates and being open and honest about this. The vendor has provided no ETAs on when the service will go up (or even a time frame they’re aiming at), and it’s been reluctant to let us know what the problem was. It took a full day for Sony to admit the network was down because of an external intrusion.

The last blog post on the PlayStation Europe community page was a full day ago.  It’s a typical response from a Japanese vendor – to lock things down in emergency and demand a very clear line of communication from the higher ups, filtered through a reviews process. The official line and messaging has worked in the past, but in the age of the Internet, it’s too easy for the virtual grapevine to spring into action if the corporates are too slow with forthcoming information. The brand is then damaged when the rumours blow problems out of proportion, and build unnecessary fear amongst customers.

In the future it will be important that Sony understands that people are more receptive to open communications, accountability, and indeed, staying available for comment does the brand less harm than being secretive.

I’ve got no doubt that once the PSN returns Sony will make some kind of gesture as a goodwill apology to attempt to start rebuilding its online brand, but more importantly, if (or when) something of this scale happens again, I hope the Sony staff will have greater leeway to be open, honest, and immediate when questions are directed to them.

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  • "To be frank – Sony’s done a poor job with updates and being open and honest about this."

    Yea, this is the problem I have with the situation. Leaving customers with little to no information…thus potentially LOSING new customers that are hearing of the news.

    I don't use the PSN for much of anything other than Netflix regularly, which is still working fine…but I'm sure the guys that were gaming online daily in the new releases are finding this extremely frustrating, and rightly so.

  • "To be frank – Sony’s done a poor job with updates and being open and honest about this."

    Yea, this is the problem I have with the situation. Leaving customers with little to no information…thus potentially LOSING new customers that are hearing of the news.

    I don't use the PSN for much of anything other than Netflix regularly, which is still working fine…but I'm sure the guys that were gaming online daily in the new releases are finding this extremely frustrating, and rightly so.

  • Agreed – it's not the downtime. That's unfortunate, especially twice in a few weeks like this, but that sort of thing does happen. While the acceptance of this reality varies from one person to another, it's generally understood.

    But the bottle-up response is frustrating – especially for people trying to figure out what is going on. It also opens the door to speculation. I've seen several blog sites ask: if Sony is being hit from an outside source, is our personal and credit card information secure? Odds are it is, but with Sony's secretive approach, they're not doing much to foster confidence in them either.

  • Agreed – it's not the downtime. That's unfortunate, especially twice in a few weeks like this, but that sort of thing does happen. While the acceptance of this reality varies from one person to another, it's generally understood.

    But the bottle-up response is frustrating – especially for people trying to figure out what is going on. It also opens the door to speculation. I've seen several blog sites ask: if Sony is being hit from an outside source, is our personal and credit card information secure? Odds are it is, but with Sony's secretive approach, they're not doing much to foster confidence in them either.

  • Yah this sucks, I have all three systems and the only one that doesn't collect dust is my ps3. So I have no problem waiting till they fix it. Don't blame Sony blame the people that started all of this in the first place.

  • Yah this sucks, I have all three systems and the only one that doesn't collect dust is my ps3. So I have no problem waiting till they fix it. Don't blame Sony blame the people that started all of this in the first place.

  • I agree with the statements made in this article, with one exception: "I’ve got no doubt that once the PSN returns Sony will make some kind of gesture as a goodwill apology to attempt to start rebuilding its online brand"

    Sony? Owing up to its mistakes?! I wish! Frankly, I haven't had the best of opinions of the company in the past few years, and the Other OS fiasco has only shown that they really don't care about their customers. Their unreadable (and more importantly, not EXPECTED to be read) EULA shows that they can get away with anything they want.

  • I agree with the statements made in this article, with one exception: "I’ve got no doubt that once the PSN returns Sony will make some kind of gesture as a goodwill apology to attempt to start rebuilding its online brand"

    Sony? Owing up to its mistakes?! I wish! Frankly, I haven't had the best of opinions of the company in the past few years, and the Other OS fiasco has only shown that they really don't care about their customers. Their unreadable (and more importantly, not EXPECTED to be read) EULA shows that they can get away with anything they want.

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