Playstation Network Outage Costs $171 Million

    Playstation Network had been down for over three weeks. Not only were PSN users not able to play online and purchase from the PSN store, but all of this had left a pretty hefty toll on Sony.
   
      The recent Playstation Network Outage is estimated to have cost Sony over $171 Million. These are costs not just from PSN users not being able to purchase from PSN online store but from many other expenses as well.


      Personal information theft protection program was one of the expenses. After the recent hack attack, a lot of PSN users' personal information such as their credit card information has been stolen. This program had to be implemented in attempts to prevent further information theft.

     Then there's the costs for the welcome back programs. These programs offer PSN users services such as free games, music, videos, and other content. I can only imagine how much this expense alone costs.

      Customer support is among the expenses list. A lot of Playstation Network users had to reset their passwords. Other than that, some still have issues gaining access to the network or certain parts of it.

      After being hacked three times in a row, Sony had no choice but to implement network security enhancements. This doesn't guarantee that they can't be hacked again, for we all should know by now that there is no such thing as hack proof. However, enhancements will make it even more difficult to be hacked again. It is unlikely that PSN will be hacked so easily again anytime soon now. This was probably one of Sony's major expenses but I doubt it was the highest.

     Sony had to spend a lot of money into legal and expert costs. This would seem to be where most of their expenses went to. Due to credit card information being stolen, Sony now has to deal with a lot of legal issues and lawsuits. All because someone has to be an asshole and ruin it for everyone.

    Part of the estimated costs is the impact of on profits due to revenue decrease that might possibly happen in the future. Sony claims that so far their haven't been any reports of  identity theft issues due to the recent cyber attack.

    There are still other factors that haven't been calculated into Sony's expenses yet. Let us all hope that it doesn't end up costing more millions. This doesn't just hurt Sony, this hurts all Playstation Network users as well. The more money Sony loses, the more PSN users end up missing out on future content. When it comes to budgeting, things get cut out. Hopefully this doesn't come to pass.