Sony Says Playstation Network to Be Fully Restored In Most Areas By the Weekend

The amazing Sony hacking saga continues. As you probably know, the company has had a few problems with hackers. Although now, it looks like the company may be seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.

Sony on Tuesday said services associated with its PlayStation Network will be fully restored by the end of this week in all regions outside Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea. The company also said it would fully restore the Music Unlimited services tied to its Qriocity streaming music service for the PlayStation 3, PSP and PCs.

“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, Sony’s Executive Deputy President, in a statement. “We appreciate the patience and support shown during this time.”

That all sounds great but its been quite a bit of time away from PSN for a lot of users. So much so that several people we know have jumped ship and gone over to Microsoft and its XBox 360/XBox Live offerings. Sucks to be Sony these days it seems.

Click through for the full press release from Sony. Has it been restored for you yet?

SONY AND SONY COMPUTER ENTERTAINMENT ANNOUNCE FULL RESTORATION OF PLAYSTATION®NETWORK SERVICES

Tokyo, May 31, 2011 – Sony Corporation and Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE) announced today that Sony Network Entertainment International (SNEI, the company) will fully restore all PlayStation®Network services in the Americas, Europe/PAL territories and Asia, excluding Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea by the end of this week. The company 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.

The company 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®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
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.

* Only available for those countries with access to PlayStation®Store.