When I normally start off an article, I like to recap the past events that have taken place in order to give the readers a sense of past and direction for the article. However, covering the PSN fiasco really needs no introduction. What started off as users wondering why PSN was down was soon covered on the PlayStation Blog and a week later, had Katie Couric pondering how Sony would respond to all of this though I’m doubtful if Couric and most traditional journalists have a single clue as to what PSN really is.

Though I’m not surprised by it, I feel like it’s worth mentioning that I am disgusted. Every gaming website out there and non-gaming sites as well are simply doing what our pop culture, TMZ/Kotaku reporting outlets tend to do: come up with some catchy headline to bash the intended target in order to maximize their readership. Facts simply don’t mean much; instead, who can write the juciest, most angry piece they can to, in this case, burn Sony and PlayStation to the ground. To put things into perspective, it was reported again that SOE (Sony Online Entertainment) was just breached as well, with over 24 million accounts being hacked. How many of you can honestly say that you were also aware of the fact that the data was from 2007 and that  none of the exposed card data was from U.S. subscribers? On top of that, only  900 of the 12,700 exposed cards were even active. Is this still a horrible situation for those potential 900 victims? Of course, but it’s sure a lot less scary than a headline which reads, “Sony Hacked Again. Another 24 Million Accounts Exposed!”. On top of that, with all the data breaches going on, people are still forgetting the fact that the credit card data was indeed encrypted and hacking into servers is one thing, while getting those informations is another thing. However, nobody wants to report that because it’s boring. Now some might point out and say that we are a Sony centric website and that we don’t want to bash Sony. Fair enough, let’s go along with the story that Sony is a evil giant corporation that only cares about itself, the fans, and buyers of its products.

Hit to jump for my full opinion.

If Sony is indeed this evil company, why would Sony want their PlayStation Network to be hacked and down for weeks? If they are evil and simply in the business of making money, they surely don’t want to be losing all the potential revenue from PSN being down. On top of that, they sure as hell don’t want to be facing the many lawsuits that are bound to be coming and they surely don’t want to just give out free gifts in order to please fans who have been hurt by this situation. You see, in order for Sony to be this evil corporation, it’s in their best interest to have PSN up all the time, in order to sell you games and content. And it’s definitely in their best interest to not face any lawsuits so they don’t have to face the public outcry and the legal fees and potential penalties from these suits.

Whether you feel like Sony is a good or evil company is irrelevant as it’s Sony best interest to keep PSN up all the time and keep hackers out. It’s not like the company wanted to risk the user data. They simply felt as if they were secure and they obviously have been. After all, can anybody recall a downtime for PSN in the last 6 years or a large down time for SOE during the last 10 years? Probably not. Instead, we need to focus the blame on the hackers who illegally got into the system and stole your information. They are the ones who have caused PSN to be down and they are the ones who are trying to get to your credit card information and email addresses. Blaming Sony and their employees for this mess is like having somebody break into your bank and steal the money while you blame the bank and the employees for the theft and not the actual bank robbers. So remember, if you are looking for somebody to blame, look no further than the hackers as they are the cause of this entire fiasco, not Sony. And for those who want to argue that Sony could have done more to protect your information, I say hindsight is a bitch.