PSN Still Down, No Offical Timeframe Yet.

PlayStation users are getting used to looking to Patrick Seybold for information.  The Senior Director of Corporate Communications & Social Media has been the voice throughout this PSN crisis, now entering its seventh day.  His posts on the PlayStation blog haven’t always been as informative or frequent as some would like, however, and the latest might fall into that category.

The latest update from Sony came yesterday, as Seybold had this to say on the official blog:

I know you are waiting for additional information on when PlayStation Network and Qriocity services will be online. Unfortunately, I don’t have an update or timeframe to share at this point in time.

As we previously noted, this is a time intensive process and we’re working to get them back online quickly. We’ll keep you updated with information as it becomes available. We once again thank you for your patience.

To PS3 users, I’m sure this sounds like less of an “update” and more of a “restatement of previous facts” by Sony.

Sony’s online gaming network has been down since mid last week when they shut it down themselves due to an “unknown outage.”  Over the weekend, they admitted what many already suspected – that an “external intrusion” had prompted to shutdown.  Many jumped to blame hactivist group Anonymous because of their history with Sony and PS3 hacking.  But the group quickly came out and refuted these claims, saying that for once, it wasn’t them who took down the PSN.

Since posting an update on this situation yesterday, we’ve seen quite a bit of feedback from PS3 owners.  This writer had suggested that like the free game awarded after the “Great Xbox Live Crash of 2008,” Sony was going to need to make this up to its loyal fans.  Many users said that Sony doesn’t owe them anything since the PSN is a free service.

That may be true for now, but if this outage lasts much longer, PS3 owners are going to have to start quantifying damages in terms of opportunity cost; as PS3 gamers are now going on day 6 without the ability to play newly released, highly anticipated games online.

And the more vague Sony continues to be and the longer the problem takes to resolve, users have to worry a little bit about the nature of the “external intrusion” and what kind of sensitive situation their personal data might be in.

NowGamer is saying that they project the PSN to be back up and running on Wednesday at the earliest – most likely by the end of the week, based on the feelings of Neil Martin, a database security engineer.

Let’s hope he is right, but we will post any official updates as they roll in.