Ben-DutkaLess than a year ago, Sony was forced into some dark times, as hackers nailed the PlayStation Network and chaos ensued.
To their credit, Sony worked hard to restore services and issued a candid apology, and Sir Howard Stringer said Kaz Hirai brought the PSN back "faster than anyone could." Also, since the Network has returned, things have been – for the most part – just fine.
It's always amazing to see what effect time can have, even when we're only talking about a span of ten months. During the PSN outage, hundreds, if not thousands, of gamers were screaming bloody murder, and swearing off Sony altogether. The communities and forums erupted with hate and disgust. But as early as June, it was reported that 90% of PSN users had returned after the hack. And now, nary a peep is heard; everything seems to be moving along swimmingly.
So the question is: has faith in the PSN been entirely restored? Has everyone simply concluded that this wasn't all Sony's fault, and that hacking is essentially the only form of terrorism we should really fear in the 21st century? Or is everyone just waiting for the slightest tremor; the smallest reason to go, "see, I knew it; the PSN is still susceptible and dangerous"…? Of course, hackers targeting game publishers became a common news headline in 2011 as well, so Sony was hardly the only victim, even if it was the highest-profile case. The bottom line is that nothing online is 100% secure and we just have to accept that.
But if you put your finger on the pulse of the gaming community, what do you feel? Faith and stability or anxiety?