May 9, 2011 06:30 GMT  ·  By

Sony has just revealed a new way in which it is going to apologize to owners of PlayStation 3 or PlayStation Portable consoles for the ongoing outage experienced by the PlayStation Network online service.

At the beginning of last week, Sony revealed that it was set to get the PSN back online in around 7 days, but, as most of you know by now, the news that the company's Online Entertainment servers were also hacked put the restoration process on hold.

Now, as we're rapidly nearing the third week of downtime for the PlayStation Network, a Sony Europe spokesperson revealed that those affected by the outage are going to receive two downloadable PS3 games for free, from a selection of five, while PSP owners are going to get two free games out of a total of four.

"Look out for more information on the rest of our Welcome Back programme, including which free content you will be eligible for. We will be offering PSN users the opportunity to select two PS3 games from a list of five, as well as offering PSP users the opportunity to choose two games from a list of four. We will let you know exactly what games are available very soon."

No details were revealed about just what selection of games Sony is going to offer to its customers, but one can expect the Japanese company to try and make good with some of its more popular choices, perhaps ones made by its internal studios.

The spokesperson once again emphasized that Sony is going to offer an array of services and deals to customers affected by the outage in all of the territories it is currently present in.

"Both Kazuo Hirai and Sir Howard Stringer have stated that we will be offering identity theft protection for those affected by the malicious attack on PlayStation Network and many of you may have seen the details of the service available in North America."

"As I have explained previously, creating a similar offering for the many countries within the SCEE region is a very complicated process. Each country has a different way of handling identity theft; some offer relatively sophisticated services whilst others are much more modest."

Sony, as of yet, hasn't pinpointed an exact date at which the PSN will be back online.