This has been explained half a dozen times already, but... you paid for PSN when you bought the box. They advertise the service as part of their product package, they are required to have it available for their customers, free or not.

My point is down time is down time, PSN has been down ~30 days, many 360 users have matched if not exceeded that due to RROD issues. Sony's PSN issue is very much like MS RROD in terms of the inconvenience to the consumer. Neither good but neither are the end of world either.

Except they aren't equal situations. RROD is first and foremost a hardware issue. You not only lose online, but the ability to play period. That is not a valid point of comparison to PSN going offline, which is obviously a partial disability. An equal comparison would have been to YLOD, but hardware failure is so far removed from the issue at hand.

I sort of agree with you in the sense that I would prefer to have PSN go down than lose my 360 to RROD.

And I would prefer not to pay to get my console fixed. These are silly comparisons.

Sure, but sadly the PS3 hasn't exactly been immune to hardware failure.

I think that since PSN users is given much more value/content for their loss of online-functionality, and they still had much less loss of functions as for when the machine break down.
A new standard has been set, in this digital age.
So I think that maybe Microsoft (and the other hardware manufacturers) should concider to atleast include some games/value aswell in the future - for the loss of the machine during breakdown, to remain competitvie.

How many games does Sony throw in when your ps3 fails?

Stop trying to compare the 2 issues (hardware failure and online service failure).

I'm pretty certain that any company offering such or similar service has somewhere within the terms of agreement a clause that explicitly states that online time is a 'best effort' only. There is no guarantee that PSN will be online 24/7/365. To suggest that they failed to provide a service that was advertised is... daft.

You think best effort (concerning a 26 day outage) would fly in a US court?

Under the circumstances yes, its no secret why this is happening to PSN... Sony isn't being negligent here, they are acting in good faith.

Of course, but the happiness rating would go up from, say, 80% to 97%, and with the vocal Internet users siding much more with Sony. In the cost:benefits balance, shifting a much better happy medium could have been reached.

Is there going to be much market for Infamous and LBP when pretty much everyone can get them free? There'll be those without PSN accounts, which is a lot, but then the market is also going to be flooded with used copies, surely. Best get in quick!

I don't know, but I think all the manufacturers should have to start giving compensation for lost console-usage, if they are to blame.
Microsoft knowingly released a new firmware wich they know is incompatible with some of the 360-models they've sold, they have replacement programs in place.
But they should also concider atleast compensating the users for the lost usage besides giving the users a working console.

Sadly typical false connections being drawn with this. 1) Consoles die all the time. 2) Demanding games will stress hardware more and generate more failures. 3) Newly released and well reviewed games will get more play. These points would suggest any major game release like LA Noire will have associate hardware failure. Now add in the mix a FW that just happens to be released at the same time, and suddenly it's assumed the FW causes this, instead of all the other points. Unless someone has figures on average failure rates for AAA games, figures for these pre-3.61, and noticeably elevated figures for post-3.61, it's impossible to conclude that FW 3.61 causes system failure. And when you consider it's a network patch, logic tells us this isn't anything other then poor reasoning on the part of those suffering a mild coincidence of events.

As Al says, every FW there's a load of people claiming it's bricking consoles.

If you look around MS offered not only retail games but also hardrives to those affected along with extra live time.

My cousin who had a core unit got a 20 gig hardrive and a friend of mine got Perfect Dark Zero and Kameo .

MS has already handled the RROD better than Sony every handled PS1 and PS2 drive failures , both times sony had to be sued and lost before offering to help .


Hell look at ms , the new update doesn't work with some older xbox 360 systems so ms is going to comp those people a new xbox 360 slim .

MS has simply handled this generation better than sony. The RROD was a major problem but they extended the warrenty and have given many users retail games and hardrives and other acessorys .

Sonys system failures have been met with the consumer footing the bill.

MS has worked to drive console prices down while increasing the featuers in the system. The xbox 360 had hdmi added to it , had wifi added to it . Sony on the other hand has removed BC , removed other os , removed ports from the console in an effort to reduce costs to compete.

Everytime live goes out for an extended period of time (days not weeks ) MS makes good and comps the time and gives free games . Some sony users have been unable to go online for a month and sony's make good offer is pretty poor for many users.

Even if you are right, it still behooves these companies to provide good compensation to maintain good customer relations. With such a long downtime for a service that is now considered a given and/or expected in gaming (available online play, store, netflix, etc) you'd think they would have actually tried to maintain good relations with people and provide decent compansation. That's just basic business in my mind. I mean there are competing products out there that people can flock to and the company has a name/reputation you'd think they would be interested in maintaining. They already look like a bunch of goofballs from the security breach, but now additionally they just look like they don't give a damn by offering ancient titles as "compensation". That may be deemed acceptable for those who seem thrilled and/or grateful that psn is even up at all and/or are satisfied with whatever online scraps are thrown their way due to psn being free, but don't be surprised when others think they have been treated poorly. To me the whole thing seems like a poorly veiled attemped to use the downtime "compensation" as a way to advertize their psn+ service.

If we are discussing compensating for the loss of service there is a valid argument in those that didn´t get to play for weeks because they had RROD´s. RROD´s came purely from Microsoft failure.

The failure of 360´s and PS3´s of today should be within normal standards.

Showing your true colors here?
Free games can hardly be considered "online scraps" by anyone but the most negative in the crowd. Just because someone happens to have those games doesn´t take away the value from the games, just from the person that can´t benefit 100%.

Google about it and see that MS gave all types of stuff for RROD , including but not limited to head sets , controllers , free live time , retail games and hardrives.

When you look at the value of some of these things and lets say that a RROD would take a month from the system breaking to you getting it back. If your comped a hardrive which at the time was $100 + 3 months of live (which was standard) Your getting $115 bucks worth of stuff for your trouble. What are we getting from sony. PSN+ which is $5 and a game which is what $5 ? $10 ?

Heck the head phones are $20 and the MS games like Kameo and Perfect dark zero were still in the $20 - $30 range at that point

Many? you got something to back that up?

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/many

Its a word in the English Language ?

Remember Many does not mean the Majority

That's not true, in the cases I know of, Nordic Films are console-distributor here in Norway.
I know 6 people with PS3, and the one who had his broken twice, got it replaced for free, after 3 and 4 years, might be different practice with systems older than 5 years tough. :-/

Then define how many you think it is. 10%, 5% 20% ?

You are just blowing hot air, the most negative comments in this thread about the "welcome back" package is clearly from hardcore XBOX users. So i would think you might have something a bit more concrete than this thread?

It well be interested to known the age of the PS3 who broke, and the environment of use. Olds PS3 can have potentially the same trouble than first 360 and Nvidia 8600M, so leadless who don't support well heat/cold contraction. And environment, one of the more important problem for electronic product, Dust! And specially dust from cities, pollution, very tacky and a very good heat insulate. So some PS3 (like 360) was in good conditions to die when you use it for intense session after a long period of non use.
Really don't think is the frimware, apart if Sony change something in cooling managing or use of the SPE reserved for OS.

I think you're being too harsh. The games are good games, and Sony can only really offer their own published titles due to costs. It's not fair to compare Sony's PR gift-giving to MS's as MS has a nigh limitless warchest with which to pay for good feeling, funded by twenty years of 'MS Tax' from their OS domination. Basically whatever you get off MS in terms of free Live! content has been paid for a hundred times over in profits on their products and services. Sony aren't making such high profits from their consumer sales, so they have less of the buyers money to give back to them by way of freebie sweeteners.

Sony's response doesn't seem out of line with what I'd expect in the normal course of events. there's not much else they can do. They can't credit accounts with money in the same way MS could give 400 points because PSN accounts are free so there's are multiple, unpaying accounts. For MS to give $5 to every Live member (and their compensation was only a portion of accounts), if there are 30 million subscribers, that'd cost them $150 million - maybe their profit margin for that year's gold subscriptions. For Sony to give $5 to every PSN account, that'd be ~$400 million with no clear revenue stream to cover that cost. I'm not sure even MS would shell out that much on free stuff for a similar situation, although they could afford to.