I don't think anyone who would've tried might've gotten away with it. All electrical high end consumer goods are subject to a certain rate of failure and that's why MS as well as any other manufacturer only offer a limited warranty on their product as a first line of defense against such litigation, even thouhg the design deficiencies of the 360 had been throughly documented. When the rate of failure problem escalated to the point of it becoming a serious embarrasment to MS, I guess MS had no choice but to extend their warranties by offering "free" console "repairs" (i.e. replacement), nevermind the facts that 1) you had to cover the cost of shipping the damn thing to the "repair center", 2) certain DLC wouldn't work right since the DLC's licence was tied to the previous console, not the current one you were sent and 3) that replacement console was just as prone to failure as the first one you bought. I supposed that by doing that while they worked at redesigning the 360 they managed to cool many an angered customer, but still they should've done more to rectify design issues from the get go or otherwise properly inform customers on the proper conditions in which to keep their consoles as cool as possible, since overheating (plus poor design) is definitely the main culprit of most RRODs. But disregarding any of the above, trying to sue a monster like MS over this would've been utterly futile, whether as a standalone or class action suit. They certainly knew and possibly bet on the fact that any irate customer would soon come to realize that the costs of litigation would've been simply staggering when compared to the extremely lower cost of sending a dead 360 for repairs or even simply buying a new console. It still sucks, but that's the plain truth right there.
My explanation email arrived today, 4/28/2011, at 5:28AM PST. Yeah, that's timely. Glad I check here to see if anyone knew what was going on...
I still have yet to recieve an email but I just thought of something. A long time ago in a podunk town far, far away... a local franchised restaurant that had just opened was sued for an e. coli contamination that sickened a large percentage of their burger consuming customers. For the first month-ish the restaurant saw a significant dip in business but after some time had passed and the local customers saw the increased frequency with which their restaurant was being inspected and the new standard of cleanliness they kept, customers began pouring back in. A few at first, then soon, as word got around about how much scrutiny they were under, business was soon booming, no one got sick again and things remained so at least until I moved away. While I don't disagree that Sony made an egregious error, it sounds like this will be quite a blow to both their image and their wallet. Since I'm sure they don't want this to happen again, I would imagine they'll spare little expense in the steps they take to prevent future hacks. Hopefully, without instituting subscription fees. The point is that after this has passed, I think that PSN will be running better than ever. I absolutley think Sony should be held accountable for this, second only to the hacker or hackers responsible for the attack in the first place but once this is over, I think PSN may even give XBL a run for its money. Not saying it can't happen again, but I would imagine it'll be much, much more difficult to succeed and a lot easier to get caught. Sony, if you make this right, you'll have at least one loyal customer for many, many years.
VG Cats did a comic on this, which is worth looking at. I'm not sure how worried I should be about this as I have a PSP and a PSN account to go with it. I've bought things on it too.
Senator Blumenthal sent them a letter a day or 2 ago pretty much demanding to know why it took Sony a week to inform customers that their data may have been at risk as opposed to doing it as soon as they suspected it had been compromised and suggesting Sony should foot the bill for a 2 year free credit check for all customers. Seems reasonable to me. Also got my email from Sony. As I play DCU and got the legends plan, my card info was there because the legends plan would expire if the funds weren't in the wallet and the idea of remembering to run out and get a PSN card each renewal date did not appeal to me. Obviously now wishing I had done that instead.
I'd be worried. Very, very worried. So much so that you should change your email password and call your bank or credit card company and have whatever card you used on PSN cancelled right away. Also call the appropiate credit bureau to put an alert status on that credit card.
Yeah, pretty much what Invidious said. In fact, reports are alresdy surfacing about PSN account users credit cards being illegally used. There's no sure way to tell if it's because of the PSN hack, but the timing is suspicious. The very first thing I did when I got home after hearing the news that personal data had been stolen was to change my email passwords and pretty much every other password on most sites I frequent.
Hopefully this will serve as a wake up call to all corporations, not just Sony, regarding online security. When I think of all the websites where I've typed in my credit card info over the years (Amazon, PayPal, Steam, XBL, etc) it gets pretty nerve wracking.
Haven't Sony since come out and stated that all the credit / debit card details were stored on another encrypted system and weren't compromised? The reason for being super paranoid at first was due to them wanting to be overly cautious just in case? > http://www.gamingexcellence.com/ps3/news/3353.shtml
OK, this is petty, but to me, what is annoying is that every day, when I'm ready to watch instant movies on NetFlix, I have to power off the system and reset it. Otherwise, if buffers the first 1/4 inch of the show, and will sit there for hours. I was in the middle of watching something, and the system blacked out on me. No power interruption, it just stopped playing, and my TV said lack-of-signal. Guess what? Had to full power-off, wait, & restart. Hopefully it will work now. If not, I'll be back to bitch about it... OK, so no. In spite of 4 attemts to power off, wait, and restart, I now get nothing. Not even a reboot screen. Nothing from the PS3. Was tempted to put in a game & see if that would do the trick. Sad. No, Pathetic.
Um, yeah. It sounds broken to me. The same thing actually happened to me. The system would turn on just fine but it wouldn't recognize any discs at all. I had to send it in to Sony for repair. But it's been working ever since.
Did the RROD put you off getting an XBox? FWIW I've had my PS3 for going on 5 years and I've never had a problem with it. Anecdotal evidence cancelled!
Cripes! Have you tried using the Playstation site for anything? Talk about serious PITA!!! All I was trying to do was find into on getting my machine repaired. I've had teeth extracted less painfully. Run around in circles... Anyway. Seems now I have to wait for instructions on what to do with it... Glad I kept the box. Even had it some place easy to find: right under the game console.
This just in...sorta. PSN users to be "compensated" for the downtime. All "regular" users will get 30-free days of PSN+ while PSN+ users will get 30 days off their bill. Or something. Sites calling it the "Sony Welcome Back" program. Full article here.
I remember not having an easy time finding information on how to get my system fixed as well. Eventually I just said forget it with the online help and I just gave them a call: http://us.playstation.com/corporate/contactus/ Much less painful.
I got an email from SOE about that. I don't even remember signing up to it. (I have a PS2 but I don't game online with the PC). The email address isn't my main one so maybe it was when I bought the PS2.
Holy [BLEEP] [BLEEP]... I think PSN users should've seen that one coming weeks ago when official word of the hack got out and should've proceeded immediately at full warp/FTL/whatever to their bank/credit card company to CANCEL ANY cards attached to thier PSN profiles and call their credit bureou to monitor suspicious activity.
Hmm, I wonder if that SOE breach would extend back to SW Galaxies accounts? (any card I used back then is long since replaced, but still).
