PlayStation Network back up and running, but neither Sony's apology nor compensation satisfies fans

While not as catastrophic or dramatic in its consequences as the 23-day outage in 2011, the global outage of the PlayStation Network in the middle of the weekend was a crushing blow to Sony's relationship with users and its handling of the problem.

Finally, by early this morning all services were back up and running, so we can now get back to the action in our multiplayer games. PlayStation has also announced via X that PlayStation Plus subscribers will receive an additional five days on top of their active subscription. But this, as many will know, is not enough. The server downtime problem has uncovered other serious service gaps for users.

Firstly, what happens to those who enjoy free games without a PS Plus subscription, and have not been able to enjoy them? We're talking about large player bases, such as Fortnite.

Secondly, there are those users with digital consoles (PS5 and PS5 Pro) who have, for example, their PS4 or PS5 games stored on external drives. The ownership readout of those games when connecting to the console is validated via PSN, so it may be that, during a crash like yesterday's in the future that lasted longer, a PS5 Pro could be a very, very expensive paperweight. And the same applies for other devices that need to be connected, such as PS Portal.

One eventuality I'm sure many gamers are now wondering about is what will happen to the ongoing Monster Hunter Wilds beta. As you know, the game will launch on 28 February on PlayStation, Xbox Series and PC, although the main player base is always expected to be on Sony's consoles. Neither Capcom nor Sony have commented on this, but this drop has already led to a number of players deciding to try the game on another platform, if possible, and even cancelling their PS5 pre-orders.

Last but not least, Sony has not yet reported on what specific problem caused the worldwide network outage. In 2011, during the PS3 era, the service was offline for 23 days due to a hack which, remember, led to the theft of personal and financial information from 70 million user accounts, which in turn forced Sony to completely overhaul the entire system. Has user information been leaked this time? We gamers need to know.

Ultimately, Sony needs to come back to terms with its users (not just PS Plus subscribers), to offer compensation that is effective for all gamers, and to explain itself accordingly. Do you agree?