14 DAY TRIAL // Without a doubt this week's most important issue for gamers, at least PS3 or PSP owners, was the ongoing PlayStation Network outage, which arrived after a group of hackers compromised Sony's online service and might even have stolen the personal data of the 70+ million PSN users.
As you can imagine, it's a difficult time to be Sony, but while some consider it just a victim, the Japanese company did take a few peculiar decisions that ended up causing more harm than good.
Let's go over the timeline of events and see just where the company could have done a better job at informing its users.
The PlayStation Network went offline last week, on Wednesday, April 20, but Sony declined to even admit this until late Thursday, when it released a short update on the PlayStation Blog, in which it said that some unplanned maintenance was being done to the online service.
This led many PSN users to just believing that Sony encountered an issue that needed a quick fix, and went about their regular lives.
On Friday, things became a bit more serious, as Sony revealed that the PSN issue was a bit more serious, and that it would take a couple of more days to solve.
According to some eagle-eyed readers, the company made a brief mention about the outage being caused by an outside source, but it was quickly taken out of the official announcement.
This is where Sony should have realized that it would've been better to just be truthful and admit that an external issue was causing the PSN outage, instead of just concealing the truth in order to save its secure reputation.
After an Easter weekend without any sort of online experience for PlayStation 3 or PSP devices from all over the world, Sony posted another update, saying that things are being fixed but that it doesn't know when the problems will be eliminated.
Users reached boiling point, feeling lied to by the Japanese company, especially as all sorts of rumors and speculation started flying around on the Internet, pinning the blame on hacker groups like Anonymous or the customized firmware versions that were being used by pirates on the PS3.
Sony did the first sensible thing at the end of Wednesday, after a week of PSN outage, when it formally admitted that a group of hackers compromised its systems and might have even stolen personal data from all PSN users, including names, passwords, email or home addresses and even credit card information.
As you can imagine, many users felt betrayed, as only after a week did Sony believe they should know about their confidential data being leaked into the hands of hackers.
The company quickly followed their announcement with a few explanations, saying that the confirmation was delayed for a week because it needed to do a serious investigation before it knew that user data was compromised.
Despite this, the company is facing government inquiries both in the USA and in the UK, while gamers have already begun engaging in lawsuits against it.
Meanwhile, the PlayStation Network is still offline, with Sony saying that the service might go back online next week.
What do you think of Sony's attitude during this whole PSN scandal? Was the company right in making sure that user data had been compromised before making the official announcement or would it have been better to reveal this in the first place and then thoroughly check it out?