The PlayStation Network Outage, All You Need To Know ( Part I )

UPDATE: An anonymous and reliable source has reported to PlayStation Underground that the issue affecting about 90 million PlayStation users worldwide is a bit more complicated than it was originally thought to be. According to the source, the PlayStation Network sustained a DDoS attack ( evolved from an initial LOIC attack ) that wrecked havoc on Sony’s servers. The attack also resulted in many administrators having their accounts breached, and “Sony then shut down the PSN and [is] currently in the process of restoring backups to new servers with new admin dev accounts.”

For those of you who think that AnonOps is behind this, just to reiterate – they aren’t. Although the network outage would have no doubt caused heavy losses to Sony ( with Microsoft also commenting that they’re expecting an increase in Xbox LIVE traffic ), Sony understandably thinks its better to utilize this time to equip themselves with better infrastructure so that such disasters don’t happen in the future.

The servers in Japan are expected to go up tomorrow with the U.S and E.U. servers expected to go up the following day.

Loyal PlayStation gamers are outraged at the longest ever global PSN outage, and sadly, Sony is yet to fix the issue. Sony is still sticking to their previously stated time period by which ( hopefully ) the problem will be resolved – one to two days. In a slight change of stance, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe ( SCEE ) stated that outsider groups might have played a part in disrupting services worldwide. One thing to note, however is that external services have resumed, access to the PlayStation Network however remains disrupted.

Meanwhile, Anonymous has made a rather surprising move stating that they will resume attacking Sony only once the PSN is back online. Talking further in-depth about their sympathetic move towards Sony, Anonymous member Kato in an IRC chat with VG365 said that they will not ( as they had stated before ) attack the PSN.

Just to clarify, Anonymous will NOT attack PSN services

For those who are wondering about the probably source of the out-of-the-blue PSN disruption, here’s some rather interesting info for you: a tweet by @PlayStation_RLS mentions that the issue originated from Japan and that engineers are trying their best to fix it. Here’s the tweet:

As always, Hardcore Gaming News will keep you updated about further developments. Or, you can have a read at the Official US PlayStation Blog.

( Read part II here. )