PSN Blackout: You Get What You...Pay For

Demiurge

PSN Blackout: We Want Answers

Online's crippled, and people are pissed. What's going on, Sony?

April 23, 2011

These are dark days for PlayStation 3 gamers. The PlayStation Network has been out of commission since Wednesday evening, and ever since then, access to the PSN and the PlayStation Store has been cut off. That means that you can't download titles, sync your Trophies, or even play online multiplayer.

Can you imagine how gamers who this week eagerly purchased Portal 2, Mortal Kombat or SOCOM 4 feel? But beyond that, what about the rest of us?

In a sense, outages like this should be expected with the PlayStation Network. It's a free service (unlike Xbox Live) and as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for. But this lack of a financial stake for customers seems to equate to the lackadaisical response from Sony itself.

Other than inexcusably vague, inconsistent and brief updates from the PlayStation Blog, tangible information about what's going on with the PlayStation Network is non-existent. There seems to have been no attempt to answer the fundamental questions millions of PlayStation 3 users have right now, such as what the problem is and when the problem will be fixed. Heck, as IGN's News Director Jim Reilly brought up on his Twitter account, Sony hasn't even answered a question as fundamental as if users' credit card information has been compromised.

All Sony has said since Wednesday is that the PlayStation Network is down, that the company knows the problem was external to the Network itself, and that Sony is investigating the cause.

All of that's great, but what are they going to do to make it up to us?

Yes, the PlayStation Network is free. But when I purchased my PlayStation 3, part of what I paid for was access to the PSN. Without it, the PS3 can do about as much as my NES can -- play games that I put into it (and, in the PS3's case, games already downloaded to it). I'm not a huge fan of online multiplayer, but I do like accessing leaderboards, syncing my Trophies and checking up on my friends. I barely have the will to play PS3 without its online functionality, and I know there are millions of gamers that feel the same.

And moreover, unlike the PSN, time isn't free. Many gamers use the weekend (especially a long weekend like this one) to chip away at their backlogs. As I mentioned earlier, three huge games came out this week and all have a varying focus on online play. This means that none of these games can be played in the way they were intended, and that's ignoring all the games that came before them that people also can't play.

Heck, can you imagine the small developers who have released games recently on the PSN, losing precious money with each PSN-less hour that goes by? I can only imagine that there are more than a few developers flipping out over this outage out there.

I understand that an attack external to PSN isn't Sony's fault. But the reasons for this extended outage haven't been well-communicated to the PlayStation 3 community whatsoever, and frankly, keeping the PSN offline for an extended period of time while an ongoing investigation is conducted into what happened bodes poorly for the extent of the attack and the damage it may have caused.

So what do you think Sony should do to make this extended outage up to PlayStation 3 gamers? Should you be able to log-on to the PSN when it's back up with a few extra dollars in your PS Store wallet? Should you get a free PSN game, PSone Classic or PlayStation Mini? Or should nothing be done at all? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/116/1163747p1.html

I can't feel sorry for PS3 owners who game online and are getting what they paid for. What gripe do they have when they haven't invested anything in a service that everyone else charges for? Free online gaming is only a selling point if free is actually a good value. It's not.

This is why XBox Live users don't complain when we willingly shell out $50 a year to have access to other gamers the world over and top shelf content. It's a good value, and if XBox Live ever went down, the customers would have a legitimate gripe because they're actually paying for a service as opposed to leaching off a free one.

Yes, this is an "I told you so," thread, since all we ever hear about is that PSN is free and that's supposedly a good thing. Having gamed on PSN, it sucks.

AsSiMiLaTeD

That's dumb.

PS3 users aren't leaching of a free service, they're using a service that comes with the product they purchased. A selling point of the PS3 IS the free service, so you ARE paying for it if you are a PS3 owner, especially if that was a selling point for you. I've owned both consoles and preferred the PS3 because it didn't crap out on me, so MY purchase had nothing to do with the free PSN, but I do know people who included that as a factor in their purchasing decision.

Just because I pay for a service up front instead of paying annual dues doesn't mean I have any less right to expect it to work than anyone else.

Normally I'd agree with your line of thought, but not in this case. I'm an Infiniti owner, my vehicle came with free maintenance for 2 years and free oil changes for life. That was (one of) the reasons I chose it over some of the other brands we were looking at. if I drove into my dealer and they said the service department was down indefinitely, I'd have every damn right to be mad. This is no different.

I didn't even know the network was down....shows how much I'm into online gaming I guess.

Rodeo0530

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

That's dumb.

PS3 users aren't leaching of a free service, they're using a service that comes with the product they purchased. A selling point of the PS3 IS the free service, so you ARE paying for it if you are a PS3 owner, especially if that was a selling point for you. I've owned both consoles and preferred the PS3 because it didn't crap out on me, so MY purchase had nothing to do with the free PSN, but I do know people who included that as a factor in their purchasing decision.

Just because I pay for a service up front instead of paying annual dues doesn't mean I have any less right to expect it to work than anyone else.

Normally I'd agree with your line of thought, but not in this case. I'm an Infiniti owner, my vehicle came with free maintenance for 2 years and free oil changes for life. That was (one of) the reasons I chose it over some of the other brands we were looking at. if I drove into my dealer and they said the service department was down indefinitely, I'd have every damn right to be mad. This is no different.

I didn't even know the network was down....shows how much I'm into online gaming I guess.

I agree with you here completely. I don't really care that the network is down, but to have the "I told you so" sense of thinking makes no sense to me.

Demiurge

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

That's dumb.

PS3 users aren't leaching of a free service, they're using a service that comes with the product they purchased. A selling point of the PS3 IS the free service, so you ARE paying for it if you are a PS3 owner, especially if that was a selling point for you. I've owned both consoles and preferred the PS3 because it didn't crap out on me, so MY purchase had nothing to do with the free PSN, but I do know people who included that as a factor in their purchasing decision.

No, it isn't dumb.

When something is free, it means you don't pay for it. You paid for the console and nothing more. If (key word) you were under the false assumption that since you bought a PS3 and it gave you access to free online gaming when you bought, that it meant it would:

A.) Always be free.

B.) Wouldn't suck.

You were sorely mistaken.

PS3 owners got what they paid for. When I bought mine, I resigned myself to the fact that it was mostly going to be a Blu-Ray player for me and a vessel to play PS3 exclusives. When the exclusives were shown to be a slow trickle and I upgraded my Blu-Ray player, there was no reason for me to hang onto it.

The online gaming experience compared to PC and XBox Live, was utterly deplorable. Yet, I'm told that it being free was a selling point. It was apparent before this that it wasn't, but even more so now.

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Just because I pay for a service up front instead of paying annual dues doesn't mean I have any less right to expect it to work than anyone else.

You didn't pay for a service up front, though. You paid for a console. I can see you did indeed make the two assumptions noted above. You can call it false advertising or whatever, but those were poor assumptions to make.

AsSiMiLaTeD wrote: »

Normally I'd agree with your line of thought, but not in this case. I'm an Infiniti owner, my vehicle came with free maintenance for 2 years and free oil changes for life. That was (one of) the reasons I chose it over some of the other brands we were looking at. if I drove into my dealer and they said the service department was down indefinitely, I'd have every damn right to be mad. This is no different.

I'm not aware of Infiniti's deal, and I don't much care, but "free maintenance," likely excludes numerous things. Whether it does or doesn't, for legal reasons, it's always explained in the fine print.

I guarantee that it says nowhere that because you bought a PS3 console, you're entitled to free use of the PSN for the life of the console, or even at all. It's free as long as Sony says it's free. If they switch to fee based, you pay the fee or cancel.

Can you be pissed? Yes, however as a consumer you're owed nothing because of this, and that was my point. People will be pissed at Sony, and maybe they should be, but it was their own naivete that led them to this.

ballen823

Wow. Thought Club Polk was above these types of threads.

cokewithvanilla

Idk anything about this, but I am willing to bet that PS3 sales do fuel the department that handles the PSN... I also think that if it is advertised on the box as a selling point...like if it says "Free online gaming"... then what are customers supposed to think? The 'get what you pay for' crowd must not use any variant of linux, or any other open source/free software (and that's a joke cause 90% of people do). Trust me on this, you don't always get what you pay for and life is much harder without free/open source software.

Now, I'm sure in the manual somewhere, or when you go to long on online, it has a terms of agreement that say "subject to termination without notice" or whatnot.... but this is no reason for people to think that they don't get online play for free if it says so on the box. Besides, most people play online these days, to not have this would be insane... I doubt it will be down long.

Ace944gs

I don't game online, but do have to use PSN to get Hulu, Netflix, and NHL Gamecenter streams. Right now, I can't, since those services are authenticated through PSN.

I bought my PS3 sometime last year, along with 4 used games, and have literally played them a total of 10 times (and that's not each...10 times, total). I use netflix & hulu daily, and NHL Gamecenter a few hours a week. It's been a tough few days having to rely on the laptop for these things (I don't have cable), but I'm surviving.

If I can come up with another reasonable solution to watch those three things, I may be selling the PS3... Mac Mini has called my name a few times, but it's a bit expensive.

jbooker82

I guess I didn't even realize it was down. I don't really play on line.

If anything it makes the xbox fan boys feel good since they have to pay. That way they can now interpret it as getting something that they paid for.

Rodeo0530

Demiurge wrote: »

No, it isn't dumb.
When something is free, it means you don't pay for it. You paid for the console and nothing more. If (key word) you were under the false assumption that since you bought a PS3 and it gave you access to free online gaming when you bought, that it meant it would:

A.) Always be free.

B.) Wouldn't suck.

You were sorely mistaken.

PS3 owners got what they paid for. When I bought mine, I resigned myself to the fact that it was mostly going to be a Blu-Ray player for me and a vessel to play PS3 exclusives. When the exclusives were shown to be a slow trickle and I upgraded my Blu-Ray player, there was no reason for me to hang onto it.

The online gaming experience compared to PC and XBox Live, was utterly deplorable. Yet, I'm told that it being free was a selling point. It was apparent before this that it wasn't, but even more so now.



You didn't pay for a service up front, though. You paid for a console. I can see you did indeed make the two assumptions noted above. You can call it false advertising or whatever, but those were poor assumptions to make.



I'm not aware of Infiniti's deal, and I don't much care, but "free maintenance," likely excludes numerous things. Whether it does or doesn't, for legal reasons, it's always explained in the fine print.

I guarantee that it says nowhere that because you bought a PS3 console, you're entitled to free use of the PSN for the life of the console, or even at all. It's free as long as Sony says it's free. If they switch to fee based, you pay the fee or cancel.

Can you be pissed? Yes, however as a consumer you're owed nothing because of this, and that was my point. People will be pissed at Sony, and maybe they should be, but it was their own naivete that led them to this.

Why the personal attacks? Why call him dumb for not agreeing with you? I feel that you are completely wrong for that. You have your opinion and he has his...which I agree with. No need to call someone dumb because they disagree with you.

jbooker82

Demiurge wrote: »

No, it isn't dumb.

I believe he ment to say YOUR dumb for even starting this thread. Your clearly just an XBOX fan boy, making jabs at others. Long live the Red Ring of Death.

jbooker82

double post

Demiurge

jbooker82 wrote: »

I guess I didn't even realize it was down. I don't really play on line.

If anything it makes the xbox fan boys feel good since they have to pay. That way they can now interpret it as getting something that they paid for.

I'm certainly engaging in some schadenfreude since I've been told a number of times it's ridiculous to pay for a service when you can get it for free, but you actually do get what you pay for. When you don't, you can ****.

If PSN was a pay service (outside of PlayStation Plus), the PS3 would probably still be sitting on the VTI because PSN probably wouldn't suck the way it does now, outage or no outage. I never bought it for the online gaming, and the two reasons I did buy it were no longer a concern.

A company like Sony wouldn't take such a lackadaisical role in protecting their customers financial data, and failing to give them a quality service, if their customers were actually paying for something. It's easy for a company to slack after the lump sum was given to them and no more money is coming in. I'd argue Sony has much incentive to not piss off their customers like they're doing right now, but this just shows why free online gaming was nothing but a rouse to get people to shell out money for their console.

Is Sony to blame or do consumers have to be more diligent in how they spend their money? Probably both.

Demiurge

jbooker82 wrote: »

I believe he ment to say YOUR dumb for even starting this thread. Your clearly just an XBOX fan boy, making jabs at others. Long live the Red Ring of Death.

Oh, the irony.

Demiurge

Rodeo0530 wrote: »

Why the personal attacks? Why call him dumb for not agreeing with you? I feel that you are completely wrong for that. You have your opinion and he has his...which I agree with. No need to call someone dumb because they disagree with you.

Why was I called dumb for having the opinion I have? Are you just that biased, or did you not read the response?

Rodeo0530

I apologize because I did look right past that when I read it...I don't agree with that either. That is my fault. I can see why you responded how you did, although I don't agree with that still, but I find it more valid now.

Rodeo0530

I just don't find a need for personal attacks. Being able to debate back and forth is wonderful fun until it becomes personal.

AsSiMiLaTeD

First off, there are no personal attacks. I called his opinion dumb, not him. Its perfectly plausible for an otherwise smart person to have a dumb opinion or make a dumb statement. I do it all the time, I happen to think the LOTR and Star Wars movies are all crap, and yet I realize this is a 'dumb' opinion.

Back on topic...

Demi didn't really refute my car analogy very well, so I'm standing by that, how's this any different?

The free PSN IS a selling point of the PS3, they mention it on the commercials and its right there on the box. If it says it on the box, I have every right to believe that its true.

Is there fine print and is it 'guaranteed' to do anything? Yes, and no. But, I bet the fine print on the XBOX Live sub is very similar, probably says something about it not guaranteed to be operational 24/7 or some such. Simply put, there's ALWAYS fine print, but that applies to both worlds.

So I 'paid' for my subscription up front, you pay for yours yearly, how's that make any difference in terms of which one of us gets to **** when our service goes out.

Is the XBOX sub better? Of course, arguing that the PSN is better would be absurd. That's not the point here. The point here is that the PS3 owners have a right to **** about it when it goes down. if Sony makes you go through that service to get your Netflix and other stuff, the owners have every right to expect it to be functional.

My main point though is that the argument that 'you can't **** because it's free' is absurd

jflail2

I'm worried about my credit card information having been leaked and you're gloating b/c you chose the superior gaming network...kudos to you.

And honestly, that's the only thing I'm pissed about, and I'm not sure I'm pissed about it yet b/c it hasn't been confirmed. Now if they come out a few days from now and say "oops, we let all of your billing information go out the door and were trying to think of a nice way to tell you/own up to it", then I will most definitely be pissed.

Past that, whatever. I'll either play single player games or watch one of my many movies. Yup, life goes on.

grimmace19

So... something that no PS3 owner has started a thread about to complain about gets an "i told you so" thread from a 360 fan?

Get a fricken life.

mutelight

I pay for both PSN and Xbox Live.

Shows some rather weak character that this thread was created by a person that is completely unaffected by this.

At least Sony has far superior media capabilities and Netflix streaming and they don't require you to have a paid online service account. Instead of MS adding 5.1 audio or 1080p video streaming, they added the ability for my to wave my hand and look at my recommendations on Netflix, thanks MS, why did you even bother?

ysss

Yeah, I tend to agree that going "nyah nyah, I told you so" is pretty immature and an indication that the person may be looking for some sort of validation that he lacks IRL/other venues.

PSN is down not because it's a free service, but because Sony angered the hivemind (and sh&tstorm) called anonymous by going after Geohot for Jailbreaking the PS3.

Upstatemax

I could care less about online gaming and trophies...

However, as others have said I do PAY for Hulu Plus and Netflix that I can't access because the PSN is down.

So yes, some do have a real complaint. There is plenty of stuff that people have paid for that can't be used since Sony mandates that it's used with the PSN.

They do need to come up with some answers and I do want to know if my C.C. info has been put at risk.

polkfarmboy

If you get what you pay for then why do I pay for playstation plus and do not receive it ?

Unlike others here I was able to log into the netflix even though I could not sign in







i

newrival

Anyone who thinks that PSN is free just because there's no monthly service is mistaken. Nothing is free. Overhead, R&D, IT, operations, etc. is all built in. A company like Sony can build PSN costs into a number of different products. $.05 per sony game sold, licencing on products, an extra buck per console, a few bucks on a download, advertizing on the PSN page. Believe that Sony is making it up somewhere.

Furthering Assimilated's analogy: My VW had "free" maintenance for 3 years, i say "free" because I paid for it. I paid 20k for a car that had 3 years of maintenance. It's a shell game. Pull out a couple features as options instead of standard equipment and the price stays comparable, and then the customer pays for the options on top of it and youve made the customer feel like theyre getting a deal. It's consumer psychology. aka a big game of hide the weasel.

cokewithvanilla

ysss wrote: »

Yeah, I tend to agree that going "nyah nyah, I told you so" is pretty immature and an indication that the person may be looking for some sort of validation that he lacks IRL/other venues.

PSN is down not because it's a free service, but because Sony angered the hivemind (and sh&tstorm) called anonymous by going after Geohot for Jailbreaking the PS3.

To be honest, I think sony was stupid to start a lawsuit. PS3 has been around for 4 and a half years... it's really time for an update, they should have just let it go.

Aside from that, 'locking down' consoles is really dumb. This is one of the reasons I won't buy one.

Fongolio

Demi, this is one of the most immature thread starts I've ever seen on Club Polk. To start a thread just to say "na na na na boo boo, my console's better than yours". I mean really? Think about it.

ysss

cokewithvanilla wrote: »

To be honest, I think sony was stupid to start a lawsuit. PS3 has been around for 4 and a half years... it's really time for an update, they should have just let it go.

Aside from that, 'locking down' consoles is really dumb. This is one of the reasons I won't buy one.

Uhuh, but there's also the angle of 'For $299 you get a fine piece of machinery with upgradeable software, linux installable (up until sony f THAT up, that prompted the jailbreak) and decent lifespan that supports 1080p, hdmi and 3d bluray'

It's kinda pointless and futile to just subject a single point of view to this (or to any topics really)..

tommyboy

I've owned ps1 and ps2 and hated both of them (except MGS and ff7) mostly for the controls and lack of first party support. But to pretend xbox is superior because the PSN networks has been down for a few days is ridiculous. I might like xbox a lot more, but I at least I don't beat down on people who like PS3 (unless of course they brag they don't have to pay for online access, then you deserve it)

Maybe this could be a thread to say maybe its time to charge for online to make it a better service, but don't rip people just cause they own a ps3.

ysss

Read up and get informed.

The PSN hasn't been down because it's free.

Hints\keywords: Geohot, PS3 jailbreak, anonymous.

mutelight

Upstatemax wrote: »

I could care less about online gaming and trophies...

However, as others have said I do PAY for Hulu Plus and Netflix that I can't access because the PSN is down.

So yes, some do have a real complaint. There is plenty of stuff that people have paid for that can't be used since Sony mandates that it's used with the PSN.

They do need to come up with some answers and I do want to know if my C.C. info has been put at risk.

If you try to login twice with Netflix, it will sign in the second time.

kuntasensei

I'm not getting into the whole fanboy side of this... but I will say that I'm willing to pay for the advantages that Xbox Live has over PSN, primarily because it's a tightly regulated and CLOSED system. That allows them to monitor users, react to complaints, their software lets them jump into games on the fly with people who have received complaints so they can police the system, and they aren't shy about dropping the banhammer on people who are ruining the fun for others. It also means that they have a significant number of staff there 24/7 to deal with problems such as PSN is experiencing right now. I don't agree that Netflix, etc. should be for Gold members only though... which is something that PSN got right.

Each has its advantages and disadvantages. We can **** all we want, but even if PSN stays down a week, they still have 51 weeks of free over us Xbox Live users, even if we think Xbox Live is totally worth it. For me, it comes down to the fact that most of my friends are on Xbox Live and damn near everyone has a headset... and at the end of the day, playing with the people you know is what both of these networks are for.