nam37 writes "Sony Online Entertainment's various services seem to be down and a message on the official site does not give much information on the particulars. According to a short post on the site, the services were taken down after an investigation revealed a deeper 'intrusion' than expected at first. This is the first we have heard that Sony's MMORPG arm had some sort of security breach. This could be part of Sony's plans to beef up security for the PlayStation Network, but this message seems to indicate that something more serious going on."

WrongSizeGlass writes "The LA Times is reporting that Sony has revealed that 10 million credit card accounts may have been exposed two weeks ago when a hacker broke into the company's computers in San Diego and stole data from 77 million PlayStation Network accounts. Sony said it will provide credit card protection services for the 10 million customers whose data were compromised. Sony last week said it had encrypted credit card data, but not other account information, including names, addresses, email addresses and birth dates."

iSimon19 writes with word that after last week's unscheduled service disruption and security breach, "On their blog last night, Playstation representatives announced they were restoring services throughout the week. This also included giving all users a month of Playstation Plus free, as well as select downloads for free with their 'Complimentary Offering and "Welcome Back" Appreciation Program.'"

splitenz writes "A TV executive told a major Australian broadband conference that television audiences are slipping away into social media, gaming and other online subscription spaces. YouTube and online gaming is taking the traditional TV audience online and TV is struggling to fight back."

Stoobalou writes "Soon-to-be-celebrity hacker and thorn in Sony's side George 'Geohot' Hotz has denied any involvement in the ongoing breach at the PlayStation Network. The 21-year-old hacker — who is best known for creating the first software-based hack for the iPhone, and getting hypervisor access and exposing the root key to the PlayStation 3 — has made it clear that he had nothing to do with filleting Sony's online gaming servers, saying 'I'm not crazy.'"

gabbo529 writes "Nintendo's latest financial results reveal that initial sales for their portable 3D gaming system have been underwhelming at best. What's the reason? Nintendo chief executive Satoru Iwata says consumers have yet to fully understand the console's 3D capabilities, even when trying it out. Others think it might have something to do with the console's high price ($250) and the lack of big-name titles available (Mario and Zelda are not yet out)."

dotarray writes "The Australian classification debate has just gotten a little more interesting, with South Australian Attorney-General John Rau announcing that he wants to go one step further than merely introducing an R18+ rating for video games. His proposed plan would change the system to include G, PG, M and R18+ classifications (while still allowing for games to be Refused Classification or effectively banned), making a 'clear difference' between what adults can play and what is available to children."

Samfer writes with this excerpt from Operation Reality Gaming: "[...] sometime this summer, likely around August, we will see the appearance online of both a Crysis 2 editor and a CryEngine 3 SDK (software development kit). This not only means that people will be able to make full blown new levels for Crysis 2 but that the CryEngine 3 will also be made publicly available for the development of non-commercial projects to the community at large. To quote, 'This will be a complete version of our engine, including C++ code access, our content exporters (including our LiveCreate real-time pipeline), shader code, game sample code from Crysis 2, script samples, new improved Flowgraph and a whole host of great asset examples, which will allow teams to build complete games from scratch for PC.'"

ZorbaTHut writes "I've been playing a lot of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup lately. It's a great example of a roguelike (and open source, too). But I can't stop thinking that perhaps 'roguelike' is the wrong term for the genre. 'Roguelikes aren’t about dungeons. They’re not about text-based graphics, or random artifacts, or permadeath. ... Roguelikes are about using an unpredictable toolkit with complex interactions in order to overcome unpredictable challenges.'"

Over the weekend, we discussed news that the PlayStation Network had been down for days, with Sony saying little other than that it was caused by an "external intrusion" and that they were "rebuilding their network." Many of you have written to point out that the outage continues, with Sony saying they "don't have an update or timeframe to share at this point." One theory about the cause behind the network's downtime was recently espoused on Reddit by 'chesh,' a moderator at PlayStation-modding enthusiast site PSX-Scene.com. According to him, recently released custom firmware called Rebug allowed people to essentially turn their PS3s into dev consoles, though some features were missing. A different group supposedly used this firmware to get on PSN through the developer networks, and also found that fake credit card numbers were not being validated for game purchases, leading to what chesh called "extreme piracy." He acknowledges that this theory is speculation. Sony's handling of this outage is starting to draw attention from the government. Update: 04/26 20:47 GMT by S : Sony just posted more details, saying that a massive data breach occurred: An "unauthorized person" has PSN users' "name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID." Billing address, password questions, and credit card info may also have been taken.

trawg writes "Sony has officially announced a new line of 'Sony tablets.' There are two models, both offering 3G/4G and Wi-Fi running Android 3.0 — one is a typical tablet with a 9.4-inch screen and the other is an 'unprecedented dual screen' type. Digital content is a big focus: music, books and first generation PlayStation titles will all be available (subject to the usual region restrictions for content)."

An anonymous reader writes "Two researchers who have a history of publishing studies that claim violent video games lead to violence have now published a new study claiming that they've come up with an 'objective' way to measure why violent video games lead to violence. They've taken the names of people who signed an amicus brief on the upcoming Supreme Court case on an anti-violent video game law in California, and decided that if you added up the number of publications by each side the ones who supported 'video games lead to violence' had more publications, and thus that was 'proof' that they had more credibility. Yes, quantity is more important than quality. The fact that the researchers who published this 'study' also wrote the amicus brief that supported the same claim seems to call their objectivity into question as well."

Zothecula writes "While motion controllers are becoming a staple for console gamers with the release of the Wii, PlayStation Move and Microsoft Kinect, PC gamers have been left wanting. Razer is looking to change that with its Hydra motion controller which has been developed specifically for PC gamers. Unlike console-based motion control systems, the Hydra uses magnetic tracking technology by way of a base station that emits a magnetic field that Razer says allows the exact location and orientation of the handheld controllers to be detected with millimeter accuracy."

motang writes "Nintendo has officially announced the successor to the Wii. At its investors meeting, Nintendo said they have decided to launch the successor to the Wii in 2012 after the fiscal year, and will show it off and have a playable version at this year's E3."

BogenDorpher writes "Microsoft is reportedly in talks with major TV networks about having its Xbox Live service stream TV channels in the United States. This would be an interesting move on the company's part as it would allow an Xbox 360 user to stream TV channels though their Xbox."

alphadogg writes "The outage of Sony's PlayStation Network and Qriocity service, now in its fourth day, looks set to continue after the company said on Sunday that it is 'rebuilding' its system to better guard against attacks. Sony said on Saturday that the outage was caused by an 'external intrusion' into the network, but has yet to detail the problem. The PlayStation Network is used for PlayStation 3 online gaming and sales of software to consoles and the PlayStation Portable. The Qriocity service runs on the same network infrastructure and provides audio and video to Sony consumer electronics products."

An opinion piece at CNN looks at Microsoft's Xbox Kinect, praising the system's capabilities not for gaming, but for what it does to the video viewing experience. "The idea of being able to ditch your table full of remote controls and just use your hands and voice to interact with the TV is compelling. It's much nicer than QWERTY keyboards, which are a terrible idea in the living room. It's also better than Wii-like remote controls, or even using an iPad or smartphone as your TV remote, a feature that cable companies are increasingly rolling out." The problem, as they see it, is Microsoft's inability to actually bring this into common usage for regular television viewing. "It seems like the company is tied too much to the Xbox's substantial gaming revenue to split the Xbox TV stuff off as a separate product — even though there's a huge population of non-gamers who probably have no interest in buying an Xbox." Perhaps this is something that can be addressed by others when the Kinect SDK is released.

Several readers have noted that outages on Sony's PlayStation Network have prevented online play for the past few days. The company has now blamed an 'external intrusion' for the trouble, saying they took down the network to "conduct a thorough investigation and to verify the smooth and secure operation of our network services going forward." Some suspect an attack by Anonymous, who declared war on Sony earlier this month, but Anonymous has disavowed knowledge of such an attack. Meanwhile, others are asking whether Sony should compensate users for the inability to play PS3 multiplayer modes, and even single-player modes on a few downloadable games.

x*yy*x writes "According to Consumer Board in Finland, Sony should pay up 100 euros to a console owner for OtherOS removal. The board said that the removal of OtherOS crippled console features that were present at the time of purchase and agreed that consumers should be compensated. Sony tried to point out that the user agreed to the PS3 EULA, but the consumer board noted that such agreements can't go around consumer laws."

itwbennett writes "Nothing is official and Nintendo isn't talking, but 'industry sources' runneth over with new information about the company's new gaming console. IGN on Thursday said that Nintendo is ditching 'Wii' and will call the new console 'Stream'. And nothing connotes Internet connectivity like the word stream. 'That's an area Nintendo has really been lax on in the past,' says blogger Peter Smith. 'Pure speculation on my part but I just wonder what, if anything, will be streaming to this new console? Video? Gameplay? A strong online multiplayer component?'" Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has indirectly confirmed that the new console is in development.