Sony unveiled the PlayStation 4 at an event just over a month ago. Their plans for the next generation gaming system include incredible graphics and exclusive content. However, you will have to wait until the Holiday Season 2013 to get your hands on it.

In the meantime, Sony’s PlayStation 4 spot at the Game Developers Conference helped provide a better idea of what will go into the PS4. More specifically, the new system will be centered around an updated Blu-Ray drive. The new drive will be three times faster than the drive on Sony’s PS3.

As you may know, Blu-Ray has been Sony’s claim to fame in the gaming world, providing some of the best graphics around. Now that the Blu-Ray drive is going to be updated, one can only hope that the graphics will advance even more.

In addition, Sony is planning to remove the 100 friend limit in the PlayStation Network. The new limit has not been announced but Sony is also changing how they will display your name in PSN. Instead of automatically displaying your real name to your friends, you will have to decide which of your friends can see your “True Name”.

However, your name will automatically be shown if you become friends with another user via a social network where your name is provided.

Are you excited for the next generation of gaming consoles? Can you wait until the Holiday Season to pick one up? Let us know in the comments below.

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Instead, the hack attack was targeting about 2,000 Sony Ericsson mobile communications users in Canada, pilfering the personal information of these cell phone owners. Similarly, phishing spam emails were sent out from Sony’s online Thai services.

I’m sure that other companies suffer through some hacking attacks too and it’s just unfortunate for Sony that its problems have become so widespread and so well-known. This really tarnishes their good name that has stood for quality for so many years.

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Just when you thought that Sony was finally in the clear, it looks like the PlayStation Network has another gaping hole in its security. Again. A hack has come to the surface, revealing an exploit wherein hackers can change a user’s password on them.

How? All they need is the user’s email address and his or her date of birth… you know, the kind of information that was compromised in the first wave of attacks. If they already have this info, they could just go and change your password, having their way with your PSN account all over again. Great. Just great.

The good news is that after this exploit was brought to the attention of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, they took down the web-based PSN password recovery site “for maintenance.” They say the hole has now been patched and you can go ahead and change your password on your PS3. It’s probably a good idea to change your e-mail address (since you can’t honestly change your birthdate) too, just in case.

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The other problem is the sheer amount of bandwidth being sucked out of Sony datacenters. It appears they didn’t prepare entirely for a big spike in initial customers logging back in. According to PCW:

Blame droves of eager PSN members, who reacted to the news like any sensible gamer would, by full-on bum-rushing the network. That didn’t go over well with Sony central, which buckled, then temporarily blacked out. The company revealed last night that it was “experiencing [sic] a heavy load of password resets” and had to “[turn] off the services for 30 minutes to clear the queue.” (Sony reiterated this on its PlayStation blog.)

Well, what the heck did they expect was going to happen? Now we’re not so confident with these “added” security measures.

Sony’s press release states “considerable enhancements to the data security, including updating and adding advanced security technologies, additional software monitoring and penetration and vulnerability testing, and increased levels of encryption and additional firewalls.”

They also added “a variety of other measures to the network infrastructure including an early-warning system for unusual activity patterns that could signal an attempt to compromise the network.”

“If you’ve requested your password reset, it’s taking time to clear all of the ISPs, so please give it a bit of time to reach your email,” Sony tweeted.

Just a recap, 26 days ago Sony announced their network was hacked, didn’t announce it to the FBI until two days after (so what?) then giving a “free” month of PlayStation Plus probably because that first month is going to be as slow as a turtle. And then of course, let’s not forget the billion dollar lawsuit.

I guess it’s good to be back, but it’ll be a steep road for Sony to earn back everyone’s trust.

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McPhadden Samac Tuovi LLP is a law firm based out of Toronto and they’re handling the class action lawsuit launched against Sony Entertainment and its associated companies. The figure being thrown around at the moment is a cool $1 billion, though that might go even higher as more gamers sign up to be a part of the settlement.

The accusation? They’re saying that Sony breached the privacy of millions of customers and allowed hackers access to credit card information off the company’s servers. Sony has already said that around 102 million users were compromised during the recent hack, including credit card numbers, addresses, user names, and more. I dont know if this can hold up, Sony did not par take in the breach, although they were holding the user information they are responsible, but was it intentional? No, and what did these customers “lose” other than service? It is not known if the credit cards of the customers have been mis-used.

Natasha Maksimovic is a 21-year-old PSN customer and she’s the one that went to McPhadden to get the wheels in motion. Somehow, I think this class action lawsuit is pretty much in the bag, so you might want to look into how you can get your proper compensation… you know, aside from a month of free PS+.

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We learned yesterday about Sony accusing Anonymous of facilitating the hacking of Sony’s servers, resulting in the PSN nightmare that has been going on the last couple of weeks. Anonymous has just responded.

Thankfully for Sony, Anonymous didn’t respond with another DDOS. Instead, they took the more civil route and issued a press release. In it, the group says that it was not involved in the credit card fraud at all, saying that they do not condone credit card theft. That said, they make no specific mention of denying involvement, either direct or indirect, with the hacking attack that resulted in the theft of thousands of credit card numbers.

It is very well possible that Anonymous was involved in a DDOS (perhaps in response to the Geohot lawsuit), which in turn made Sony’s PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment services “more vulnerable” to the ensuing credit card theft.

“A group of standard online thieves would have every reason to frame Anonymous in order to put law enforcement off the track,” Anonymous said. “If a legitimate and honest investigation into the credit card theft is conducted, Anonymous will be found not liable.”

Photo: Fabrizio Pilato

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This whole PlayStation Network hacking fiasco has been a PR nightmare for Sony and it looks like the bad press is about to get a heck of a lot worse. Not only did Sony allow the hackers to gain access to your account info and your credit card info, apparently they waited two days before they even thought to contact the proper authorities.

Based on the most recent reports, Sony didn’t make first contact with the FBI until two days after they discovered the security breach. What’s more, they didn’t meet up with FBI officials over the matter until five days later. During those five days, who knows what the hackers were able to accomplish and how much of that could have been prevented with the right intervention.

Sony is saying that Anonymous, the group that has no trouble taking down other major corporations to make a statement, indirectly allowed the hacker(s) to get into Sony’s servers. Yes, they’re trying to make themselves out to the be the victim here — and they are a victim — but they could have done more to protect themselves and their users.

It doesn’t help that Sony isn’t being exactly open and forthcoming with what little information it has.

“Sony needs to make a statement to consumers: ‘You will not be harmed, and we will indemnify you against any harm,’” said Wedbush Securities analyst Michael Pachter. “And they just have not done that in any of their apologies.”

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Oh Sony, how big and dangerous you have become.  Many of you were excited with the latest news of PSN service coming back online shortly, but don’t jump up and down just yet, because Sony has just announced  (as of May 3) that their Sony Online Entertainment PC games network was also hacked.

Sony said late Monday evening that names, addresses, emails, birth dates phone numbers and other information from 24.6 million PC games customers – sounds like your base belongs to us – was jacked from Sony’s data servers, including what we are told data from “outdated” databases from back in 2007.

This latest breach includes the theft of over 10,000 direct debit records from Austria, Germany, the Netherlands and Spain and over 12,000 non-U.S. credit or debit card numbers.

Sue Tanaka on behalf of Sony said “They are hackers. We don’t know where they’re going to attack next,” when asked if there could be a risk of other data being compromised.

Sony Facebook games are down now as well, since the new breach Sony was forced to take down the games.

This recent news may delay the PSN network from being revived which was originally expected sometime this week.

How do you feel about this?  Comment below or hit up the official PSN Poll.

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So, let’s start with the good news. The good news is that the Welcome Back program includes 30 days of free PlayStation Plus. If you don’t have PlayStation Plus, then you get to try it out. If you already have PlayStation Plus, they’ll extend your expiry date by 30 days. They’re also offering a month of free downloads for “selected PlayStation entertainment content.”

Sony is gearing to get PSN back online next week and it’ll get beefed up with increased security, hoping to prevent similar situations in the future. The bad news? In the present, about 10 million credit card accounts may have been compromised by the hackers. So, yeah, you might want to keep an eye on your transactions on those cards or, better still, ask your credit card company for a new number altogether.

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