PlayStation Store up and running, Welcome Back offer causing issues for users
PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable owners have something to cheer about as Sony announced that the PlayStation Store was back up and running. With it Sony’s Welcome Back offer is also open for users though it seems to be causing a few problems of its
own.
As expected, a large number of PlayStation Network users are taking advantage of the offer, rushing to download the free content which includes two free games.
This in turn is causing a spike in network traffic which the servers are not able to cope with, bringing with it a whole new set of issues for users.
Many users are getting the “80710D36” error when they attempt to download content along with the issue of having their connection to the server being timed out.
Commenting on the issues PlayStation owners are facing, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe’s head of communication, Nick Caplin explained that the heavy load on the servers was the problem and that things would improve as the traffic reached normal levels.
"There are so many of you accessing the store at the moment that due to the excessive load, it is a little slow," Caplin explained before continuing, "We are improving it as I write this, so you will see improvements in speed as the day progresses."
Sony were hoping that the re-launch of the PSN would go smoothly, however the issues seem to be stopping that from happening as nothing seems to be going their way.
The PSN was down for over three weeks after a vicious cyber attack compromised the personal and credit card data of around 100 million users. The PSN has since been restored in phases with the restoration of the PlayStation Store the final step in the process.
The incident caused Sony Corporation $171 million in losses and had senior executives bowing in apology in front the world press.
Add in the recent attack on another Sony branch, Sony Pictures, where a hacker group known as LulzSec is said to have breached security measures and stolen ‘thousands’ of account passwords and email Ids, the situation seems to be getting worse.
The main concern is how easily the hackers were able to gain access and how, once they breached the security measures, the data was not even in encrypted form.
LulzSec also mentioned in their press statement that they did not have the resources to copy all the data yet they did get away with a large amount of account details that could potentially be used in future hacks.
Many were expecting Sony to tighten its online security after the initial attacks but it seems that is not the case. However, with the PSN back up and online, at least the gaming community has something to cheer about, albeit at a snail’s pace with connection
error issues.
Tags: