Sony has once again had the PSN and Sony Online services hacked, though the services are not shut down and remain online. These hackers tried to log in using an extremely large number of account names and passwords. The majority of these login attempts failed, which led Sony to believe that it has been attacked yet again. These hackers tried to use a third party program to access PSN and SOE accounts using information taken from other sources.

“These attempts appear to include a large amount of data obtained from one or more compromised lists from other companies, sites or other sources,” Philip Reitinger, the SVP & Chief Information Security Officer of the Sony group wrote on the official blog. “In this case, given that the data tested against our network consisted of sign-in ID-password pairs, and that the overwhelming majority of the pairs resulted in failed matching attempts, it is likely the data came from another source and not from our Networks.”

How many accounts were accessed successfully by the hackers? 93,000. Sony is claiming that very little activity was seen on the compromised accounts before Sony was able to lock them. If your account was one of those affected, Sony will e-mail you with details to reset your password, which is beginning to seem like something Sony will get pretty good at if they keep going at this rate. Credit card information is not at risk, this time.

“We want to take this opportunity to remind our consumers about the increasingly common threat of fraudulent activity online, as well as the importance of having a strong password and having a username/password combination that is not associated with other online services or sites,” Reitinger wrote. “We encourage you to choose unique, hard-to-guess passwords and always look for unusual activity in your account.”

It’s strange, really, that Sony would warn the users. Maybe the users should warn them. You know, maybe a company as big as Sony should have a little better encryption on their network. Or perhaps the logins should be more protected. Hopefully they figure out this really quickly or the PSN will be down again, and next time it could be for good.

Source: Ars Technica

Since PlayStation Home launched, Sony has been interested in finding different ways to incorporate games into its virtual world. They have had various levels of success, but now they have announced that they are going to completely redesign the service in order to focus more on games. According to Home director Jack Buser, this redesign of PlayStation Home will change the service “from a social network to a social game platform.”

While Sony had slowly been increasing its focus on games before this official redesign announcement, they will now truly have something to share with the gaming community. PlayStation Home currently contains 23 million users worldwide and features 230 playable game titles. The redesign will make the service almost entirely about games, though it will still have the look and feel of PlayStation Home.

“We are students of Walt Disney here,” Buser told Ars, “and we’re going to be designing the core experience inside Home not unlike the way they’ve designed Disney Land and Disney World, where you have a central transportation hub surrounded by themed districts. Except out districts are going to be themed off of game genres.”

Instead of having the central plaza holding Home together, there will be a transportation center that can take users to different locations. There will be four themes locations to speak of at the launch: action, sports, adventure, and casual. Each area will be designed to look and feel like the genre it is based on.

While it is true that PlayStation Home has always had themed spaces, the new spaces will be “filled with games.” And don’t be alarmed; these games won’t be typical mini-games. These games are said to contain actual games aimed towards the PS3 audience. When the game relaunches, one of the titles will be the puzzle game Cogs, which is currently available on both Steam and iOS.

“So when you first enter into the hub the very first thing you’re going to see is just games,” explained Buser.

PlayStation Home will also contain an optional quest system, which will make the service almost a game itself. This will let users play games and complete other various activities in order to earn different rewards. An activity board will list all of the different quests that you can take on. Sony is also going to have user-generated content be a big part of the redesign. Players will be able to build, post, and promote “their own events” inside PlayStation Home.

PlayStation Home will also be getting a “separate technology update” that is supposed to streamline the service and make everything faster and less laggy. While this update doesn’t have a release date set at this time, the redesign will be released sometime this fall.

Source: Ars Technica

As of today, Sony’s PlayStation 3 is now $50 cheaper than before. The console now costs $249 for a 160 GB model and $299 for a 320 GB model.

Sony is offering a limited edition 320 GB console with Infamous 2 for $299, but otherwise there’s no additional effort to pack in anything extra. There’s no PlayStation Move or 3D gaming accessories in any package. Sony will offer a Move and game bundle later this year, and even plans to bundle a PS3, a game and their small 3D TV with their upcoming promotions this fall.

It is now the turn of Microsoft to cut the price of its Xbox 360, which currently costs $200 for a basic 4 GB console or $300 when bundled with either the Kinect motion sensing camera or a 250 GB hard drive. Microsoft is, however, currently dominating the U.S. console market right now, so they may feel no pressure at all to reduce their prices at this time. Microsoft will probably do something in order to sell more Kinect motion sensing cameras, as they are planning to make a major Kinect software push for the holidays.

Nintendo already cut the price of the Wii to $150 after “retooling” its pack-in software. There may be some bigger bundles or lower prices as the holidays are approaching, especially with the Wii U scheduled to launch in 2012.

Sony knows that the holidays will bring good deals from both Nintendo and Microsoft, so they are cutting the PS3′s price now to get a jump on sales. Last time the PS3 had its price trimmed was in 2009. When this happened, retailers added free games to their PS3 bundles during the holiday shopping season.

If you’ve been looking at a PS3 and are thinking of grabbing one now that they’re cheaper, my advice would be to wait a couple more months for the even better deals to come.

Source: Techland

Yesterday, I posted about Sony’s $499 bundle that has their new 24″ 3D TV. To read more about the bundle, click here. http://www.itgeekblog.com/2011/06/playstation-3d-tv-and-other-e3-goodies/Basically, the TV allows two players to play simultaneously without splitting the screen. With the 3D glasses, each player will see a different image on the screen, as the refresh rate is halved. The bundle comes with Resistance 3, a pair of glasses, the 24″ inch 3D TV, and an HDMI cable. For each additional pair of glasses, the price is $69.

Obviously, I must be posting something new, otherwise I would just have you read my other post. Well, we have more information and a hands-on look at the TV.

When not wearing the glasses, the TV nearly gives you a headache. So if you have company over and you’re playing video games, good luck if each person doesn’t have glasses. You literally won’t be able to tell what the heck is going on. It just looks like your screen is going crazy and the people playing are losing their minds. However, with the glasses, the technology is amazing, allowing each user to see a different image.

“The television does 1080p at 240Hz, but the refresh rate is halved for each viewer when the screen-sharing feature is turned on, so you won’t get the full use of that power.” It’s a strange technology that does amazing things. Sadly, it’s only available in 24″. Really, though, it isn’t that bad considering how large your screen probably is on any other screen running split-screen.

Source: Ars Technica

Shuhei Yoshida, the head of Sony Computer Entertainment’s worldwide studios, told the press at an event in Los Angeles that “the past three weeks have been the longest weeks of [his] life with the Playstation.” Obviously, he was talking about the Playstation Network. However, that’s not what the event was about. They were there to talk about the NGP (Next Generation Portable).

The Sony NGP is larger than you would think. Sony boasts of it’s 5″ OLED screen. However, when you’re holding an NGP, it really seems a lot bigger. It also has 2 analog sticks that feel almost like that of a Dualshock 3 controller. Something that didn’t happen with the PSP (Playstation Portable) is its added design of a rear touch panel. I’m not quite sure what it will be used for as of yet, but I’m sure developers can think of something fun.

The graphics of the NGP are definitely impressive. They almost seem to mimic those of the Playstation 3.

The online aspects (friends, messages, and other social interactions) are still unknown about. What we still need to learn is what is coming at E3. All will be known then. I’m not one for portable consoles, but this one may have my attention if the price tag is reasonable. Though, I think this one may be pretty spendy, given its capabilities and power.

Source: Ars Technica

They suffered for having such a high price to build, as well as the high selling price. “They took way too long to come down in price,” said Masaru Kato.

There isn’t much to say about this new console as of yet. The Playstation 3 was supposed to be the only “true” high-definition console, but it really didn’t matter. Rarely did games handle any better on the PS3 than they did on the Xbox 360, for the coding of the PS3′s intricate configuration took developers years to figure out, and that only mattered when they wanted to take the extra time to learn the strengths and weaknesses of it.

The Xbox 360 is more PC-like in architectural design, so developers ideally find it fascinating to work with and flourish in its easiness to design in compared to the PS3. The point I’m trying to make is that we may see a decrease in the capabilities of the PS4, but that doesn’t mean anything will change. The graphics will still more than likely get better, but that may just mean reaching what was possible but never reached on the PS3. Sony is looking to reduce prices on build cost as well as retail.

Sony is learning that they need to try to be superior, but not so far superior that they lose money. In a world of multiplatform games, you can only go so far in one direction when the competition is doing something else that works for them. The PS4 has probably been in design since the PS3 was shipped, but they are getting closer to announcing it and the information is pretty important. I’m sure Microsoft will be releasing statements closer to E3 of a new console, for they are usually pretty close to releasing consoles with Sony.

Source: Ars Technica

That’s not all, though. Users will also be able to use their existing save data from these games that are stored on their PSP’s, so they can continue the games they’ve been playing and do not have to start all over again when they hop to the big screen.

Currently, there are no games announced for the US, and only Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD Ver. has been announced in Japan. Hopefully that changes, more than likely at E3.

Source: Ars Technica

Now that the Playstation Network is finally back online, Sony is trying to be all high and mighty, as is usual with many large corporations. They are saying that this 3.61 patch is more secure and nearly unbreachable. Any true hacker knows that they don’t even have something in place to stop DDoS attacks, but simply rerouted and “rewired” the way that their security system is set up. All that would be required is to find out how exactly this new patch works, and use reverse logic (starting from their end working back to yours) in order to breach it, not that I think that’s a good idea. In addition, Sony has appointed a new chief information security officer, Fumiaki Sakai, who is also president of Sony Global Solutions.

As I stated before, Sony has prepared a “Welcome Back” package for all of their users, even the free accounts. Each user receives a free month of PlayStation Plus and free downloads for a month (of select content). It was previously stated that they would be able to download 2 of a list of 5 games, but news on that is yet to come. And last but not least, gamers using Sony’s titles of online pay-to-play will receive a free month as well. This includes titles such as DC Universe Online and Everquest.

Sony has already pulled the Playstation Network for nearly 30 minutes since their launch, and they have admitted that it is a bit unstable. Thus far, the knowledge of the downtime is due to the flood of users, along with their download requests and password resets.

Source: Ars Technica

• PSN Down for Over a Day!
• PSN Update: Credit Cards
• PSN Update
• Sony Hacked Again
• Anonymous Wrongly Accused for Sony Hacking
• Sony Updatification (Not a real word)

The stories above are from ITGeekBlog.com, another blog I do that focuses less on the gaming aspect of the technological world. Basically, these stories start after the George Hotz and Anonymous days, though Sony blames Anonymous (wrongly) in the end. My apologies if the titles aren’t the best to try and understand if you already know each. Maybe some skimming is in order.

Basically, through all of this, the PSN was expected to be up a week ago, even though I publically stated that there was no way that would happen. Now, through all of this, they are expecting the PSN to be functioning properly by May 31st.

Sony has stated that it underestimated the extent of the damages down to their servers, even though it’s ironic this comes after they reported that everyone’s information, including credit card information, had been stolen. Nevertheless, they were unprepared and are doing “everything they can.” Sony is starting to talk a little more, and has said they will let us know more as they learn it, though it may be tweaked a little, but it’s a story and progress nonetheless.

Remember: this isn’t only hurting Sony. This is also hurting all of the third-party developers as well, especially the ones that are Playstation-Only developers (aka Bungie). The damages done strictly to Sony are expected to be approximately $1 billion. Not too shabby. That’s quite the hole in Sony’s pocket if I do say so myself.

But not all is bad. Sony will be giving back to the gamers what they can. Every PSN user will receive a free month of Playstation Plus services, quite a bit of free downloads from the market for a month, and even a year of identity theft protection! If that’s not enough, users will also be able to choose 2 games from a list of 5, though Sony has not told us exactly what those games are as of yet.

Source: Ars Technica

This new update blocked many of the hacks present around various games, including, but not limited to, a lot of the hacks associated with Call of Duty: Black Ops and Modern Warfare 2. How does this new firmware hold up to the firmware expert?

“For now, it looks to me (at first glance) that the ps3 has been resecured, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be broken again from scratch. Sony’s 3 step solution: 1 – secure firmware update (3.56), 2 – secure firmware decryption (3.60), 3 – secure psn: change psn protocol (3.6x).” — KaKaRoToKS via Twitter

It looks as if Sony may have found a temporary secure firmware. Why do I say temporary? Today’s hackers can exploit nearly all software if presented with the challenge and motivation. And what’s even more dangerous is that many of today’s hackers work in teams instead of individually, which poses an ever greater threat of faster exploits.

KaKaRoToKS also let everyone know that he will not personally be working on cracking the 3.60 firmware, and will continue to develop the 3.55 custom firmware. If you’re into this sort of thing, it is to my knowledge that you can block patches with software (of course, it’s illegal), but you cannot go backwards from 3.60 to 3.55.

NOTE: Jailbreaks have already been developed for the 3.60 firmware, but I won’t be posting any links to them, as I don’t wish to face any legal action, or even possibilities of harassment by SCEA. Sony is cracking down on hackers and supporters of them, even though technically jailbreaking is legal. If you are truly interested, just Google it and find a safe/legit thread and download, perhaps with a tutorial. If you are looking to hack games, that is not associated with the jailbreak. Although you need the jailbreak to hack, you will need additional components of software in order to exploit games, which is the part not yet available with firmware 3.60.

Source: Ars Technica