Sony Corporation said Tuesday it will fully restore all PlayStation(R) Network services in the Americas, Europe/PAL territories and Asia, excluding Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, by the end of this week.

Sony shut down its Playstation network in April after a security breach in its PlayStation Network and Qriocity services. Sony said that the hackers stole personal information -- including names and e-mail addresses -- from all of 77 million Playstation Network and Qriocity service accounts, including credit card information of 12.3 million account holders. The services partially resumed in the U.S. and Europe earlier this month, but not after a rush of building a new system that has more firewalls, an offer to provide $1 million identity theft insurance per customer, month-long free play for affected customers, and lost revenues because of the month-long shut down.

Sony had previously disclosed plans to fully restore all services world-wide by the end of May. But Sony delayed the launch due to additional time needed to implement a reinforced security system.

Sony stated it is still in talks with authorities in Japan, Hong Kong and South Korea as it finalizes measures to protect credit-card holders. It will announce at a later date when service in those three countries will be back to normal.

Sony, in its May 31 announcement, also said, it will also resume Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity for PlayStation 3 (PS3), PSP (PlayStation Portable), VAIO and other PCs. Details for Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea as well as the remaining services on Qriocity will be announced as they become available.

Sony said it has implemented considerable security enhancements to the network infrastructure, as well as conducted testing of the payment process and commerce functions. The first phase of PlayStation Network and Qriocity restoration began on May 15 in the Americas and Europe/PAL territories, followed by Japan and Asian countries and regions on May 28, when the company brought partial services back online. With this partial restoration users were able to access to some of the services such as online game play, account management, friend lists and chat functionality were restored. The full restoration of PlayStation Network as well as part of services to become available on Qriocity will include:

* Full functionality on PlayStation(R)Store
* In-game commerce
* Ability to redeem vouchers and codes
* Full functionality on Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity for PS3, PSP, VAIO and other PCs
* Full functionality on Media Go

The PlayStation Network was launched in 2006 to allow PlayStation 3 users to play games online free of charge with one another. About 40% of the users are in the U.S. while 10% are in Japan.PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii in console sales.

Customers will be able to purchase and download games and video content from the PlayStation Store on PS3 or PSP. In addition, consumers will have full access to Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity through PS3, PSP, VAIO and other PC's. Service restoration of Video on Demand powered by Qriocity and Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity for a variety of network-enabled Sony devices will be announced later.

"We have been conducting additional testing and further security verification of our commerce functions in order to bring the PlayStation Network completely back online so that our fans can again enjoy the first class entertainment experience they have come to love," said Kazuo Hirai, Executive Deputy President, Sony Corporation. "We appreciate the patience and support shown during this time."

The company will be offering customers a "Welcome Back" package of services and premium content to all registered PlayStation Network and Qriocity account services. The details of this program will continue to be detailed regionally.
Sony said it has made arrangements with Debix to offer the AllClear ID PLUS identity theft protection program to PlayStation Network and Qriocity customers who are concerned about identity theft following the criminal cyber attack on the network. AllClear ID PLUS is a premium identity protection service that uses advanced technology to deliver alerts to help protect you from identity theft. The service also provides identity theft insurance coverage and hands-on help from expert fraud investigators. Sony has arranged, at no charge to eligible PlayStation Network and Qriocity account holders, for twelve months of this service to be provided by Debix to those who choose to enroll.

$170 million lost due to hack

Sony Corp. said early this month that it expects the costs arising from the online security breach to hurt operating profit by about 14 billion yen (US$170 million) in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2012. The $170 million charge is well below the $1 billion estimate by some analysts.

Sony still reported a third straight year of red ink. Sony said May 26 that it incurred a $3.2 billion net loss for fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, due to a write-off on a certain portion of deferred tax assets in Japan due to the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.
Sony said that currently known associated costs for the fiscal year ending March 2012 on account of the security breach are estimated to be approximately 14 billion yen on the consolidated operating income level.

The estimated amount includes, among other things, current estimated cost of the personal information theft protection program for customers; costs of welcome back programs that offer our customers certain services (such as games, music and videos) for free; customer support costs; network security enhancement costs; legal and expert costs; and the impact on profits due to a possible future revenue decrease.

"These amounts are our reasonable assumption based on the information currently available to Sony. So far, we have not received any confirmed reports of customer identity theft issues, nor confirmed any misuse of credit cards from the cyber-attack. Those are key variables, and if that changes, the costs could change," Sony said.

The Japan electronics giant added that in connection with the data breach, class action lawsuits have been filed against Sony and certain of its subsidiaries and regulatory inquiries have begun. However, as the suits are all at a preliminary stage, it is not able to include the possible outcome of any of them in its results forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2012 at this moment.

Playstation 4 to change Sony's fortunes?

Sony confirmed at an investor conference call that it has started development for the PlayStation 4. Sony EVP and CFO Masaru Kato said at an investor conference call that part of the R & D cost is funding the development of PlayStation 4. Sony has given the PS3, which was launched in 2006, a 10-year product life plan. Mr. Kato said that Sony won't spend as much money for PlayStation 4 as Sony spent billions putting its own semiconductor facilities for the PlayStation 3.

Nintendo, which is the market leader in consoles, is releasing Wii 2 in 2012. Nintendo plans to demonstrate the Wii 2 at the 2011 E3 Expo. Microsoft, which has sold 53.6 million Xbox 360 consoles worldwide, is said to be working on a successor to the device, though it hasn't announced a release date.