Sony Offers Free Video Games in Hindsight of PSN Hack

U.S. and Canadian PlayStation Network (PSN) users will soon get access to free game and video downloads as a sort-of reparation payment for this past month's arduous outage. Sony is slowly bringing all of its users back online in the wake of a massive hack that left PlayStation 3 gamers without access to the PSN online network.

The news comes right from Sony itself, which made the announcement about free games and video downloads on its official PlayStation blog Monday evening. For a period of 30 days following the full reactivation of PSN, Sony will offer both PlayStation 3 (PS3) and PlayStation Portable owners free access to games and videos from a select list. (Source: cbc.ca)

Other freebies may include access to in-game items and events (which usually come at a cost), as well as 'complimentary' identity theft protection.

Services Expected Back Up by May 31

In the meantime, Sony says it should have all PSN services back up-and-running by the end of May. Already some American PSN users have reported being able to access the network.

It's now been almost a month since PSN crashed due to a cyber-attack. The company later admitted that the personal accounts of some 100 million customers had been breached in that assault, leaving names, birthdates, home addresses, passwords and even credit card information vulnerable to theft.

In a report last week, some retailers said the lengthy outage -- along with concerns over Sony's ability to protect its customers -- had led to a considerable drop-off in PS3 sales.

Sony Exec: Outage Just a "Hiccup"

In a recent interview, Sony executive Sir Howard Stringer described the hack and outage as a "hiccup," adding a tongue-in-cheek jab at industry rival Microsoft by saying, "Nobody's system is 100 percent secure." (Source: pcmag.com)

"It's one of those dynamic situations where the bad guys get better and the good guys have to keep getting better too," Stringer added.