Guess Who’s Back? – Sony PSN Update

It’s finally back! Sony have announced today that they will be starting to resume Playstation Network services from today!

The PSN has been offline for over three weeks

The first regions to be getting services resumed are the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East, with Japanese and Asian services being restored after.  All Playstation 3 users are able to download the latest firmware update from now, so go and do it now if you haven’t already, and as soon as your region has Playstation Network services resumed you will be able to change your password. Both the firmware update and changing of password is required to be able to get online.

Services will take a bit of time to be turned on and sent out to each region but the first part of the online services restoration will be restoring online multiplayer functionality.

If you are on twitter follow @PlayStationEU for all of the latest updates about what has been restored and to what region.

Sony has said that they expect to have all Playstation Network and Qriocity services resumed by the end of May.

Sony has said that they have added “new and additional security measures”, which includes more firewalls and increased encryption levels to provide the users with more security and protection.

Kazuo Hirai, Sony’s executive deputy president has said “I’d like to send my sincere apologies for the inconvenience this incident has caused you, and want to thank you for all the kind patience you’ve shown as we worked through the restoration process”.

UPDATE: PSN is now available in the UK – You must change your password to Sign In

PSPhone? Well Kind Of

So, once again during my dinner break I came across this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-12446924

My first opinion is why would we buy it, especially if you already own a PSP? I once owned a PSP and hardly used it. Perhaps it was because I didn’t have the time, maybe I prefered to play on a big screen TV whatever the case was I sold it less than 12 months after buying it.

The future of gaming? The Sony Ericsson Xperia Play handset

Yes, of course if you needed a new phone then this would kill two birds with one stone. But whilst most people were wondering if Sony were going to release a PSP phone, i doubt this is how many people thought it was going to happen.

The first major downfall is that you’re not going to be able to play just any PSP game you like. As a matter off fact the likelihood is that you will only be able to play games that Sony wants you to. Secondly, they’re marketing this product as ‘The first gaming smartphone’ May I remind Sony that just about any phone that is considered a smart phone has the ability to play games. Some companies, such as Apple as an instance have a huge library of games, most of which are or have free versions available. And of course lets not forget the Nokia N-Gage, whilst it was technically not a smartphone, it did have real video games on it and eventually it became a gimmick, a fad if you will.

So will I be getting one? The short answer is no. I have a Nintendo DS and if I had the real need to play games on the move, then a quick game of Paper Toss is more than enough to keep me going. However, if my next phone contract offered me an ‘Xperia Play’ I may take up the offer just for the fact that I would have the ability to pay PS1 games if I wanted to.

What do you think? A gimmick? Is Sony trying to bite off more than it can chew by adding yet another gaming product to an already busy marketplace? Whats your thoughts?