PlayStation Network PSN Offline

The PlayStation Network has been on and off for three days now, and it's not good enough. I'm confident that Sony is working around the clock to restore the service, and I'm not one of those people that lacks patience, but I am disappointed at the Japanese giant's communication on the matter. At this point, we still don't have a clear outline of what the company's doing, when it expects the service to resume, and why this is happening in the first place.

We can be pretty confident at this point that the company's online infrastructure was struck by a heavy DDoS attack, in conjunction with a wave of holiday traffic. For this, the format holder has my deepest sympathies. I'm not an expert in online security, but I do know that these kinds of cyber assaults are extremely difficult to protect against, and I also feel the manufacturer's frustration for the way that this is being misreported by so many corners of the mainstream media. However, surely it's up to the organisation to control the message?

I can understand the firm being quiet on Christmas Day. At that point, I assumed that this was just a result of heavy holiday traffic – the kind of outage that affects many online services every year. It's never ideal, of course, but with a swift resolution, it would have been quickly forgotten. We're way past that point, though, as this is now a global story being reported by television stations, newspapers, and colossal online publications. The manufacturer's response, meanwhile, exists almost solely on a Twitter account.

This would perhaps be a little more acceptable if it was the primary PlayStation handle, but outside of a few retweets, the majority of the company's communication is coming through SCEA's relatively small support channel, Ask PlayStation. PlayStation Europe's accounts have no information. PlayStation UK's accounts have no information. The PlayStation Blog in Europe has no information. PlayStation.com has no information. In fact, it's been more or less radio silence from the firm for the past three days, although it has just posted a statement on the North American PlayStation Blog at last.

PSN Outage Sony

I understand that it's the holidays, but this is no excuse; I took time between courses of my Christmas dinner to keep Push Square readers up-to-date on the PSN outage, and have spent the majority of my "time off" so far trying to find out more information to share with you. I don't want a slap on the back for this, because it's my job; you demand the latest information on PlayStation, and it's down to me to report it to the best of my ability. Would I rather be resting than writing this article? Yes, but that's not the point.

The worst thing is that this isn't an isolated incident. Whenever the PSN goes down, the platform holder always takes an age to actually acknowledge an issue. Who could forget the famous hack in 2011, when the firm took several days to even explain what was going on? What about earlier in the year, when Lizard Squad brought the network to its knees in a similar attack, and nothing was said for hours? I know personally that I would have a lot more understanding if I knew what was going on, and what was being done to resolve things.

It all just leaves a bitter taste. Again, I can't begin to imagine how difficult it is to maintain a network across three systems, and provide a quality service for approximately 110 million users at the busiest time of the year – all while cyber attacks are rife. I also have absolutely no doubt that the company's working around the clock to get everything back online. But when a small Twitter account is the only source of information on the ongoing issues, I find it hard to fully sympathise. Indeed, the real problem here is that most people don't have a clue what the heck's going on.

Do you agree with Sammy's stance on Sony's silence, or do you think that he's starting to lose his rag due to a lack of Christmas rest? Try to stay calm in the comments section below.