The PSN Debacle

It's the easter holidays. People of all creeds are enjoying the time off, whether they follow the words of a certain religion or simply appreciate the finer chocolates in life. But for some, the weekend has been lost and spoilt by an invisible hand, an unknown enemy that seeks to destroy all known entertainment in the universe.

Or I could be wrong.

Either way, Playstation gamers haven't had the best time of it lately. Between countless technical issues resulting in online downtime, to the issues surrounding blu-ray rights with LG, it's been an up and down year. I guess it's no surprise that someone, somewhere, decided to attack the PSN servers on this holy of weekends to disrupt things just that little bit further. I mean, why not, it's the time when everyone's at home with nothing to do, right? ... Okay, maybe that's just me, but my point still stands.

Truth is, I don't play online much these days. Sure, I just bought Portal 2 and I'm keen for some co-op action, but I'm not hanging out impatiently waiting for an update from Sony. But I know how it must feel. The disruption doesn't just annoy those who wanted a quick COD or Mortal Kombat, it shuts down DC Universe, closes off LittleBigPlanet and SOCOM, and who plays single player FIFA or NBA this late in the season? (don't quote me on that though, I'm probably wrong.)

So the obvious question is why. Not why now, that one's obvious. But why would someone want to do this in the first place. Making a statement is one thing, but it's been done before (to death, I might add), so this isn't a new experience. Clearly Sony are so concerned that they've shut down completely and are rebuilding the network (almost) from scratch to ensure it doesn't happen again, whatever 'it' was.

I'm not necessarily concerned. Like I said, I don't play online much. But if there's a bigger reason than just 'we can't play online', perhaps a security loophole as discussed in the last effort, it might be better for Sony to come clean this time, tell us all what's really going on instead of covering it up. We all know there's problems with the service, and no matter how free most of it may be there's no excuse to have a system in this day and age that can be hacked so easily.

I do hope to play Portal 2 soon enough, single player is my preferred method of playing right now so I'm enjoying it. But the longer this one gets dragged out, the more likely it is I'll defer back to my old Xbox Live account. Or, dare I say it, start playing my Wii again ... do you think Portal will ever be a Wii2 game? Worth a dare, maybe.