Sony’s “welcome back” package to users following the take-down of its PlayStation Network (PSN) might have increased PlayStation 3 console and game sales, according to a report by EEDAR. The package included free games and services to entice users to return to the PSN online gaming network that was brought down for several weeks due to a hacker attack in April.
The number of home console owners with Sony’s PlayStation 3 rose to 44 percent, up from 40 percent in the month before Sony was forced to bring the network down.
One of the titles in the welcome back package, a sandbox super hero adventure game called inFamous, jumped to the most-owned game by PlayStation 3 owners, according to the report. But a lot of gamers — myself included — already own those Triple-A titles that Sony gave away.
The number of players who said they bought a game off the PSN rose to 17 percent in June, up from 13 percent in March before the network was taken down, according to the report.
Sony finally brought its beleaguered online gaming network back online nearly a month after hackers were able to break in. The company laid indirect blame for the PSN’s downtime on hacktivist group Anonymous, which typically rallies a group of loosely connected hackers under moral or political banners. Anonymous has denied that it was involved in breaking into and bringing down the PSN.
The network was offline for 24 days. PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable owners were unable to download new content for their games and play online with other players. The downtime came at a critical time for two major releases for Sony’s PlayStation 3 — Portal 2 and Mortal Kombat, both of which prominently featured online play and had received a good deal of critical acclaim.
Sony’s online network is a critical service that competes with Microsoft’s Xbox Live online gaming service — as well as other online gaming services. There are also 948 games now available in the PlayStation Network store, as well as 4,000 pieces of add-on content for games. VentureBeat previously published a timeline for the PlayStation Network outage. You can view the full video of Sony Chief Executive Kazuo Hirai detailing the return of the PSN at the PlayStation blog.