Sony game chief apologizes for PSN outage

Sony’s U.S. game chief Jack Tretton apologized to the 77 million gamers who couldn’t play online games on the PlayStation Network for a nearly a month during an outage caused by a hacker attack.

“It is you that causes us to be both humble and amazed at the same time at the support you continue to give the PlayStation brand,” Tretton said at Sony’s press event at the E3 trade show in Los Angeles.

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Hackers brought down the network during mid-April, and Sony kept the network down until it could install better security. More than 10 million consumer credit cards may have been compromised in the attack.

Tretton said the company’s event for the next 90 minutes would show why the PlayStation brand is as strong as ever. He said that PlayStation Network usage is up 90 percent from the level before the outage. It might be that a lot of people are signing on to change their passwords, as Sony has advised them to do.

Sony has offered a “welcome back” package of free games and other treats to entice gamers back. Kaz Hirai, the No. 2 executive at Sony, also thanked gamers for stick with the PlayStation Network after the outage..