Should Sony reimburse gamers for PSN outage?

As you may be aware, Sony's PlayStation Network is down in the dumps. To make matters worse, there is no clear timetable as to when the service will be back online, which is causing great frustration in the gamer community. The timing couldn't be any worse as the weekend approaches.

[jerethdagryphon]

psn plus users yes the rst of us we play for free no compensation is needed

[Eiffel]

I agree, PSN is a free offered service, PS+ subscribers could be compensated however, because they're paying for that which they can't currently access.

[MrBeatdown]

Yeah, they can access it. PS+ is a content service. If they downloaded it, they can use it. People have a month to download each item and can play it offline. I don't see why Sony should compensate just because the stuff couldn't be downloaded for two days.

Besides, Sony has gone above and beyond with PS Plus already. I've gotten plenty of bonus content from the service, not just the montly promised content.

@disagrees

I lol'd. You're paying for content (although I'm sure those giving me disagrees don't even have PS+ to begin with). The content will be there when PSN is back online.

Should every single person who has ever bought a piece of downloadable content receive compensation, just because of a brief period in which that content couldn't be downloaded? Sony should extend the length of time for which the monthly offers are available, but nobody should be compensated beyond that, because they would be getting exactly what they paid for.

[pixelsword]

Sure they can!

Gimmie DOUBLE of what I paid for, for a free service.

Duh, what's two times zero again?

[Electroshocked]

I don't have PS+ but I would much appreciate someone emailing me the InFamous 2 beta.

[fluffydelusions]

@above can you access hulu + though without psn + access?

[Zeevious]

Pixelsword...

Two times Zero?

Be careful...in theoretical mathematics, it could be anything -- but most likely just equal to the credibility generated by "Annoyingus' with their incredible strength boycotting Sony and the script-kiddies that followed their basement-level inspiration.

So, I guess 0.0 it is.

[Anon1974]

I'm currently playing Fallout - New Vegas and having a ball. I simply haven't played online or tried to access any of my PSN+ content this past week. If I hadn't checked N4G, I probably wouldn't have even noticed there was a problem all weekend.

[Downtown boogey]

@Zeevious

No, Anything times Zero is always zero.

It's the stuff divided by zero that has't been defined in theoretical mathematics.

[macky301]

Free candy for everyone!

[gaffyh]

I'm a PS+ user and tbh, I don't think a reimbursement is even needed. The only thing it guarantees is free games each month, not for connecting to the PSN to play online games.

When this happens on XBL, MS HAVE to reimburse users because they are paying for the XBL service itself, so it makes sense there.

[Knuxxx]

Don't speak of dividing by zero, this is probably how these issues with sony got started in the first place!

OT: I don't think anyone on PSN should be compensated outside of PSN+ Members. Now if this was XBL...

[BLAKHOODe]

I'm a PS+ subscriber and while I agree that the service is mostly just about the DLC you can DL and play, regardless of an outage, I'm kinda hurting right now not being able to access the PS+'s cloud storage feature, which I've began using quite a bit. So, yes, in that way, it HAS effected my gaming to a very small degree.

But do I feel like the PSN community should be reimbursed or rewarded in some way? ABSOLUTELY! The ability to play online is part of the Playstation EXPERIENCE. It's something that is advertised right on the PS3's box and many of the games we buy with the intent of playing them online. We are all being DENIED this and deserve some kind of compensation for that denial.

Personally, I'm easy. Throw me a free dynamic theme - maybe one saying I SURVIVED PS3 OUTAGE 2011 or something. As long as it's a good one, I'll be as happy as can be. But give us SOMETHING for this.

[TKCMuzzer]

just give us a double points week on games like Killzone 3 etc. That would do me nicely.

[Soldierone]

Technicly either side has an argument. It isn't free to play DC Universe. the Online maps of Killzone 3 that I JUST bought were not free. Socom is an online based game and that wasn't free. Portal 2's major asset is online steam connections and Portal isn't free.

You want a happy consumer you reimburse them in some way. You want people talking crap about this, you do nothing. That is all there is to it.

[Cerberus2125]

BLAKHOODe,you make a good point,and I almost agree with you but,how many times your Phone,Cable or Net has being down and you got compensation for it?.I did not think so.

[WildArmed]

I disgree.
Sony doesn't have to reimburse us for anything.
PSN is a free service.
The network downtime has not affected the services I signed up w/ PS+
(that is monthly content)
I am still able to play my content w/o any issues (lol at least the ones that aren't online only)

Either way, personally I don't see the need for compensation , even thou I am a PS+ user.

[gamingdroid]

They should re-imburse us with a free game play time equal to the time lost plus a little extra for goodwill. So whatever time you are entitled to free play on PSN, just add the down time plus anything you feel you deserve!

Problem solved and happy gaming!

PS, I think I will get a lot of disagrees as people only read the title.

[HappyGaming]

Nah they dont have too...

but a small freebie would be nice :)

Get better soon PSN <3 :P

[Zeevious]

Downtown...

I am aware of elemental mathematics.
It was a joke...specifically that if you theoretically combine all the parts of Anonymous, it equals 0.0

If you would like that in an equation, please PM me.

I'm not sure if Sony will be reimbursing anyone.

I'll just be so glad when it's back online, I doubt I'll be caring about being reimbursed for anything but my time gaming!

[MeanOldman]

should cnet stop writin stupid articles? where was cnet 2 years ago when xbl went down for a week and people do pay to play with that. the answer is sony dont owe for anything. even ps+ members dont pay to play online.

[jdoggystyyle]

live def wasnt down for a week...and gold users got free arcade games for compensation and TBH during xmas 07 when it was having problems i still could login so could all my friends....so it wasnt Xbox live wide problem...so try again

[Bigpappy]

I have nad Live for the day of release. It was never down for 2 week. Some one on N4G made that claim, now all the drones have to repeat it with out knowning the facts. M$ had a bandwith issue in 2007, where some were loosing connection or had problems loggin in. But the service was not down. The only time live was down, are time when M$ did server maintenance for 24hr periods and they let us know when that would happen. I have never been not on Live for 2 weeks.

There was a very serious tragedy in Japan with that quake, There are still major power issue in Japan. If that is where they have the Main server and they have to shut it down from time to time, it could cause a network back log, because other servers are having to wait for updates.

[hiredhelp]

AGREE. plus is for content the online part is free.

[skrug]

@Bigpappy

MeanOldman said for A week not 2.

http://www.joystiq.com/2007...

[BloodyNapkin]

@Bigpappy

But how long have you been sitting without a xbox? And how many times? Or how many times has your computer screwed up cause of windows and been without a computer?

[Soldierone]

@the defenders above. Even my Xbox friends are talking about how this could turn into the time Xbox Live went down...

It DID go down, their is no denying it. and stating "oh it was having massive issues" is worse than it friggin going down. PSN was "having issues" and Sony shut it down. Why? Because the frustration of all the issues constantly happening would have cause bigger problems than simply stating "PSN Is Down"

[Blaze929]

reminds me of the holiday 2004 demo disc form sony that wiped out people's memory cards and Sony gave a choice of free games to choose from.

I'm a PS+ member and I think they should really just add the days we couldn't get online to the remaining days left in our subscriptions. Sucks that I can't play any of my downloaded games offline though that require me to be online to boot it.

[NJShadow]

I had that disc... and used it. -_- Was too late to complain and never got my free game. -_-

Sony had me yelling at my little sisters for nothing. -_-

[Blaze929]

LMFAO!!!! Good times!

[ilikestuff]

yes reimburse my free!