PlayStation Outage: Sony Extends Subscriptions, Offers Discounts After Christmas Day PSN Attack

Sony Corp. announced Thursday that it will extend subscriptions for premium users of its PlayStation Network and offer discounts on purchases in an effort to placate its users after a cyberattack took down the company’s networks on Christmas Day.

On Dec. 25, users of the PlayStation console were unable to connect to the network due to an organized denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, which bombarded the network with huge amounts of traffic. The company said in a statement that it will extend the subscription of users who signed up for a PlayStation Plus account before the Christmas Day attack, for five more days.

“We wanted to show our appreciation for your patience by offering all PlayStation Plus members that had an active membership or free trial on December 25th a membership extension of five days,” Sony said in a blog post. “The extension will be automatically applied, so no action is necessary to receive the extension. We will post additional information here on PlayStation.Blog when the extension becomes available. If your membership or trial ends before the extension is available, you will receive five days of Plus to enjoy once the extension becomes available.”

In addition, Sony also announced that it will offer a 10 percent discount coupon to its customers later this month for PlayStation Store purchases, including games, television shows and movies.

Following the PSN outage on Dec. 25, a hacker group called Lizard Squad reportedly claimed responsibility for the attack. However, it has not been confirmed yet if the group was behind the outage, which lasted for three days.

While many PSN users appreciated Sony’s effort to appease its customers, some were not satisfied with the offer and wanted the company to work toward strengthening its network infrastructure.

“What I would like, more than anything else, is an explanation from Sony about how and why this will never happen again,” one user wrote in the comments section. “Use the money to strengthen and diversify the network infrastructure so these types of attacks become harder to make and easier to recover from. If Sony can do that, I’m satisfied.”