An anonymous reader writes with this excerpt from the Examiner:
“In a grand dose of irony today, Sony was sued over a term in the PlayStation Network’s End User Agreement that states that users cannot sue Sony. These terms were added in September, after a long string of Sony hacks (the official count is that Sony got broken into 17 times in a space of about 2 months), which included a massive outage of the PlayStation Network itself. The suit that was filed today is a class action suit for all of those who bought a PS3 and signed up for the PSN before the September update to the EULA. The suit also claims that this is a unfair Business practice on Sony’s part, and requires users to forgo their rights in order to use the device that they purchased.”
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An anonymous reader writes “You may recall that in early 2010, Sony decided to roll out an update that would remove the ability for PlayStation 3 owners to install a different operating system on the console, citing security concerns as the reason. Geeks and Linux enthusiasts were outraged at the move, particular since the “Other OS” functionality had been advertised as a feature of the PS3. A class-action lawsuit was soon brought against Sony. Many of the initial claims were thrown out, and now, a federal judge in California has granted Sony’s motion to dismissed the lawsuit, saying, ‘As a matter of providing customer satisfaction and building loyalty, it may have been questionable. As a legal matter, however, plaintiffs have failed to allege facts or articulate a theory on which Sony may be held liable.’ Here’s the full text of the order (PDF).”
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Published by
timothy on
Sep 15, 2011
rwven writes “Yesterday Sony sent an email to PlayStation Network members regarding a change in the Terms of Service for PSN. When agreeing to this new terms of service, you must waive your rights to a class action suit against Sony. I, for one, will not be agreeing to any such thing. You can view section 15 of the new ToS here (PDF).”
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Calidreth writes “At Gamescom last week two of Sony’s executives stated their belief that in merely ten years’ time, video games will have the ability to read more than just movement on the part of the player. Reading player emotions will be a key feature that is possible now and might be implemented into games in the future.”
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Calidreth writes “At Gamescom last week two of Sony’s executives stated their belief that in merely ten years’ time, video games will have the ability to read more than just movement on the part of the player. Reading player emotions will be a key feature that is possible now and might be implemented into games in the future.”
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donniebaseball23 writes “Xbox 360 has been having an incredible year so far in 2011, but on a global scale Sony’s PS3 is still gaining ground. In fact, this year PS3 has outpaced Xbox 360 by 10% worldwide, analysts have pointed out. While the Wii has clearly won the race for this console generation, the battle for second place is neck and neck, and PS3 has a good shot of overtaking Xbox 360. ‘As for second place, as far as the hardcore market is concerned, I’d say PS3 is a strong contender for that position,’ commented M2 Research analyst Billy Pidgeon.”
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Last month we discussed news that Sony Online Entertainment will be shutting down Star Wars Galaxies, which has been running since 2003. Sony officials recently spoke at Fan Faire to explain the business decisions behind the closure. Unsurprisingly, licensing and upcoming competition from BioWare’s Star Wars MMO played a big part. CEO John Smedley said,
“We have a contractual relationship that’s ending in 2012, The Old Republic launching, a bunch of other business things with LucasArts. And then you look at the odds of a pretty large portion of the audience moving to TOR, which looks like a terrific game. … That’s the problem with licenses: they end. We’re going to continue to do some licensed work, but we’re largely going to stick to original IP [going forward] because then we won’t have this issue. We’ll never have this problem with EverQuest. Back in 2001, not ‘03 when we launched, but back in 2001 when we [first] negotiated it, a five year license seemed like a really long g****** time. EverQuest was only a year or so old at that point. Could we have renegotiated? Maybe, but I don’t think that would be the right thing for the company.”
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mcgrew tips news that security firm F-secure has found a live phishing site running on Sony’s Thailand servers. “Basically this means that Sony has been hacked, again. Although in this case the server is probably not very important.” This comes alongside news that a point service run by So-net, a Sony subsidiary, was accessed by an unknown intruder, who stole about $1,200 worth of virtual tokens. “The intrusions are believed to have taken place on May 16 and 17. So-net discovered the breach on May 18, after receiving consumer complaints. So-net halted the point redemption service following the discovery of the breach. The latest breaches are relatively minor in scale compared to the massive breach at PSN and Sony Entertainment Online. Even so, it only adds to the company’s embarrassment.”
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RdeCourtney writes “The PlayStation Network is down again. Sony had originally enabled passwords to be reset onscreen simply by entering an email address and date of birth. Whoever has the data from Sony, could, in theory, then reset any of the captured users accounts simply by entering the details they stole.”
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Published by
timothy on
May 14, 2011
Sonny Yatsen writes “Sony has released the PS3 3.61 firmware update as a part of the phased return of the Playstation Network and Qriocity. The new update now requires all PSN users to change their passwords in order to sign back into the PSN service.” And several readers are pointing to reports that the network is slowly being spun up. Snips one anonymous submitter: “Sony Japan told customers today that it would begin phased restoration of its services of its beleaguered Playstation Network which has been suffering from an outage for nearly a month. The company would start bringing back its gaming network this Sunday, on a country-by-country basis, and expects it to be completed by May 31.”
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