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Sony’s troubles with the PSN hack in April have made the company “focus and try harder” according to Michael Denny, senior vice president of SCE Worldwide Studios, Europe.
Speaking to VideoGamer.com at Develop in Liverpool last week, Denny reflected upon the events that saw the PlayStation Network being taken offline for 25 days, following the theft of personal information from 77 million user accounts.
“It was a difficult time, and it wasn’t great at all for our consumers to have to experience that,” said Denny. “We were the victims ourselves, as a company, of illegal activity, and of course you have to take lessons out of that. The first thing I say when I’m asked this question is that we rightly apologise to our consumers for the way that it affected them.”
Seven months on from the attack, Sony’s current online security is at a “world-leading” standard, said Denny.
“In terms of our learnings, of course we have to take that experience and move on, and make sure that our systems are more robust and more secure. That’s the best we can do, and we think we’ve moved to as a high a world-leading security system as is out there. It focuses the mind when things like that happen, and we’ll do our utmost to make sure that our consumers’ experience isn’t interfered with again.”
One month on from the April attacks, Sony CEO Howard Stringer reported that 90 per cent of PSN users had remained loyal to the brand. Last week Denny also cited this display of fidelity as one of the few positives to come out of the attacks, adding that the hack has lead to a greater level of focus on Sony’s part.
“On a practical level, and a learning level, it makes us focus, it makes us try harder, it make us implement the best systems,” he said.
“I guess in terms of positivity that you try and take from anything, [it] was really the realisation of how loyal our supporters and fans and users are. Once the system did go back up, all those guys came back very quickly. I think they understood that we were the victims of this activity as well.”
Have you remained loyal to Sony through the platform holder’s difficult times?
