You might have missed it, but the PSN isn’t really working too well right now. Some hackers have done what they do best (and we don’t mean drinking Coke and using IRC in their parents’ garage) and as such PS3 owners aren’t too happy about not being able to get their online gaming fix. But here at The Gaming Review we’re coping quite well with the downtime. How? Well the beauty of the PS3 is that it does a lot that doesn’t need the PSN, and people seem to be forgetting that. So we thought we’d get our heads together and look at what we’ve been doing while the PSN is having a holiday.
Gaming
Yeah. Some people find it hard to notice, but most games have a single player campaign too. And some are huge if you’re going to make the most of them. Games like Mass Effect 2 and Fallout: New Vegas will let you clock up 100 hours between them, and if you fancy just reminding yourself of just how amazing some games can be then drop Uncharted 2 back into your PS3 and get ready to be blown away all over again. Of course there are a few titles around that let you play multiplayer with someone else in the same room; stretch your mind a little with a game of Buzz, get the adrenaline flowing with some split-screen Motorstorm or fry your brain completely with some local Portal 2 co-op.
Playing Music Round the BBQ
We’ve had some nice weather recently haven’t we? A bit breezy, but nice and sunny. Good weather for a barbecue anyway, and every good barbecue needs music. What better way to use your carefully created PS3 playlists than to plug your PSP into a stereo, stick the speakers on the patio and treat your guests to your immaculate taste in music? The PS3/PSP combination in full effect, and ideal for socialising with actual people instead of being sworn at by spotty 13 year olds. Perfect.
Watching HD Films
We like a good film, and the PS3’s BluRay player is great for getting the most out of Harry Potter and Wall-E on a decent TV. All these bank holidays and long weekends leave loads of time to sit back with a beer or nine and enjoy a blockbuster with friends, and the PS3 has been an integral part of our social plans over the past week.
Waiting
PS3 owners are divided at the moment. Some, like us, are patiently waiting for Sony to get the PSN back up and running. Others are frantically kicking and screaming and demanding compensation for their “inconvenience”. But with some much great stuff to do on the PS3 without the PSN being online, we’re enjoying what we’ve got and just looking forward to being able to play more Portal 2 online, more Operation Flashpoint: Red River with friends and a few more games of Crysis 2. We’re excited, not angry. If nothing else this downtime will just help us to appreciate what the PSN offers, but in the meantime we’re happy to wait.
So we’re not going to rant and rave about Sony. We’re not going to moan that we can’t play online against people in Spain. We’re just going to keep using our PS3s in the way that makes life more interesting, exciting and entertaining. We still love our PS3s, and this temporary problem is going to do nothing to stop that.
How are you guys coping? Have you found other things to do instead of gaming online? Let us know in the comments!
Yes we still love our PS3s.
PSN will be back up again sooner or later.
The people at Sony might just be humans like anybody else so lets give them the time it takes and I believe they know what they are doing.
OMG there are mature gamers out there who have… Patience? I thought I was the only one ;). Good stuff man.
Maybe being in the IT industry helps, but yeah we can happily wait for Sony to get things sorted. Great to hear you’re with us on that one 🙂
im getting annoyed but just now…. my gaming addiction is making me nervous xD i want to play!
i still love ps3 i hope i can trust it more in future 🙂
Yea man i agree. The PSN downtime is unfortunate but its given me time to catch up on some campaigns that i never got to finish. Also to go after some Platinum Trophies that i’ve always wanted but never recieved since i was online gaming all the time. People are freaking out because they cant live with out their online games for just only 10 days. people are acting like its been down for years. Get a grip guys. Some are even moving on to other consoles not knowing that this breach could’ve happened on any of the 3 consoles. Im sorry but i would rather wait 2 weeks for the PSN to be back online than Spend $60 a year for online on a system that you spend more time shipping out for repairs than you do actually playing.
even more depressing is the number of people who were bragging on XBL’s uptime and have apparently forgotten that XBL went down (without even being hacked) for 2 weeks right after the holidays. Until I started linking them article this was in their minds literally the worst downtime of all time. Portal 2 aside this was actually a light week for releases. If PSN had to go down.. i’m sorry to say it but this wasn’t a terrible time for it.
That’s almost as depressing as the PSN people who were demanding compensation.. like $20 for every PSN member and $50 for PS+
silly internet.
Technically Xbox Live wasn’t “down” for 13 or 14 days over the 2007/2008 holiday season. It was in fact intermittent.
As well documented sources over the “silly internet” explain, this was put down to a surge in new customers to xbox live over that period. The gaming wasn’t great but overall the system was available and as such Microsoft increased capacity to its gaming service.
Sony have left open a door to hack their systems, something which in in defensible in a consumer market. This is a massive PR disaster for Sony and confidence in them as a whole is going to be hit hard by this. Microsoft will reap the rewards of this, mark my words.
During this, 13 day outage, I am sure Microsoft has been working on further improving its security to not only its Xbox Live service but other online services it has.
maybe it wasn’t global like PSN shut down but I know I remember reading reports on most blogs saying XBL was ‘intermittent’ to the point where it was unplayable. If it’s up and down every hour that’s effectively down.
and yes while the common consensus (was it ever confirmed from MS? I didn’t know about it being ‘well documented’) was that a surge in new customers took down XBL. I find a surge after holiday to be a rather expected thing. Something you could have taken time to plan for and the fact that MS didn’t is far more offensive than Sony being hacked.
Anyone can be hacked. Many many companies get hacked all the time, that’s why security is such a financially beneficial business to be in.
I’m open to hearing your thoughts on the topic, but what exactly do you mean when you say Sony “left open a door”. They got hacked and this sucks for everyone. Especially when we thought our CC info was unencrypted, but as far as the hack itself it’s not like Sony just let them in.
As far as who benefits. No doubt MS benefits. My problem is that people were crying murder over this outage. Saying that XBL has never had this sort of issue. I read tweets saying people were going to sell their PS3 to buy an Xbox. Taunting comments about how bad timing it is to offer a PS3 as a twitter contest prize and noone would want one. All of this very literally was being said on day 3. Long before we know about the hack, long before we know about stolen info, and during a time when technically XBL was still wearing the worse outage crown.
Xbox Live launched on November 15th 2002.
PSN launched November 11th 2006.
You would expect more downtime from Xbox Live as it is 4 years older, however after this PSN outage, the number swings in Sony’s way now for most outage time since launch.
As for whether Microsoft actually acknowledged the issue of a surge in new users: “Due to intermittent service interruptions during late December 2007 and early January 2008, Microsoft promised to offer a free Xbox Live Arcade game to all Xbox Live users as compensation, in an open letter to all Xbox Live members from Mark Whitten, Xbox LIVE General Manager.[11] Increased demand from Xbox 360 purchasers (the largest number of new user sign-ups in the history of Xbox Live) was given as the reason for the downtime.[12] On January 18, 2008, Microsoft announced Undertow would be offered free to both Gold and Free members for the week starting January 23 through January 27 as compensation.[13]”
I think Xbox Live General Manager has some power behind his position!
Yes,i still love my PS3 and YES i have some games,that i still can play offline.U2,RDR,LBP,MK9,C2 and much,much more. 🙂 I LOVE MY PS3 !!!
I’m having a hard time believing how fired up and pissed off so many people are getting. There’s no such thing as perfect security; if someone hits you with a car, a flack jacket isn’t gonna do a damn thing. I’m happy to wait for them to bring the PSN back properly rather than have them rush it and leave holes. I am hoping for cross-game chat when they bring it back. In all fairness, those of us who subscribed to PS+ and DCUO should get the missed days added to the ends of our terms. Hey, thanks everyone for not being a bunch of douches and crying about this. I think this is the first comments section I’ve read where I haven’t gotten pissed at whiners and haters.
You get what you pay for. Enjoy your cheap unsecure network fanboys.
Presumably you own a 360, which makes your fanboy comment all the more ironic.
I’d laugh if it was a 360 user who hacked PSN. which it probably was
to be fair considering the popularity of 360s that’d be like saying
“I’d laugh if it was a windows user who hacked PSN”
almost everyone has a 360 that doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t even mean they play it hardcore. Not like you said a 360 owner who has 100% trophies 80+ games. That might be funny. or if they hacked it WITH the 360 (even a modded with linux 360) that would be funny.
but own a 360 doesn’t hold any particular irony
This is gonna sound trolly but it’s the truth.
With PSN down I’ve been able to get to my preferred platform for offline gaming.. the Wii. I finished Dokapon Kingdom. I’m back to Mario Galaxy and I actually defeated the last three bosses of Mega Man 9 (just Wiley left)
In an ironic twist I feel more accomplished playing MM and more frustrated playing Galaxy. Beating Galaxy is easy as pie. I hit 60 months ago, 120 stars is ******* manly. I’m not sure I have the testicular fortitude to get all 120 and I have a new respect for someone who does. On the other hand I’ve been stuck on the last 4-5 bosses of MM9 for ages.. but now that I sit down and play it.. I went thru those last three in about 2-3 attempts each. Two of them were accidental. I was just playing to learn the level and found myself at the boss and some quick weapon testing and they were down.
At this rate I might take another break and finish up Lit who knows I saw some really cool WiiWare games I’ve been itching to buy (Gods v Humans, Chick Chick Boom, even Fast Draw Showdown) we all forget about WiiWare but check out those demos because there are some completely unexpectedly sweet games out there to play.