The PlayStation Network (PSN) was out for a few days due to a hack attack and Sony is now offering free membership extensions to make up for it.
A Christmas Day distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack brought down both the Sony PlayStation Network and the Microsoft Xbox Live services, causing major outages that took a while to fix. While Microsoft had its network up and running again in a day or two, Sony took a little longer to patch things up. A hacking collective called Lizard Squad took credit for the attack.
As expected, after a few days of not being able to enjoy the PlayStation Network, disgruntled gamers started to criticize Sony and complain that they cannot access the service despite paying good money for it.
To make up for the significant downtime during the holidays, Sony is now offering discounts and free membership extensions to its users. The extensions will apply automatically, meaning that users don't have to do anything special in order to take advantage of this offer.
"Since access to PlayStation Network was impacted during the holidays, we wanted to show our appreciation for your patience by offering all PlayStation Plus members that had an active membership or free trial on December 25th a membership extension of five days," Sony announced in a blog post on Thursday, Jan. 1.
"We will post additional information here on PlayStation Blog when the extension becomes available. If your membership or trial ends before the extension is available, you will receive five days of Plus to enjoy once the extension becomes available (we will notify you when)," added the announcement.
In addition to these extensions aimed at PlayStation Plus members, Sony also touted that it will soon announce a limited-time promotional code so users can get a one-time discount of 10 percent off a total cart purchase in the PlayStation Store. According to the company, this upcoming discount will arrive as "a thank you to all PSN members."
Once this offer goes live, gamers will be able to use the discount coupon to purchase content such as new releases, game add-ons, season passes, indie games, as well as Movies and TV content that is available on the PlayStation Store.
