PlayStation: Here’s what we’ve restored so far

By Molly McHugh May 16, 2011

Yesterday Sony Online Entertainment announced that the restoration of service to its games had finally begun, as well as its forums and websites. Today, in a Q&A post on its blog, Sony offered a more thorough look at what PSN customers will finally regain access to. Social media manager Jeff Rubsenstein addressed users’ “more pressing queries,” possibly the most important of them being clarification on what exactly is working.

Rubenstein says login to PSN and Qriocity is now up (be sure to reset those passwords), as are online gaming for the PS3 and PSP, PS3 video playback, Qriocity’s Music Unlimited service, friend chatting and networking services, in-game leaderboards, PlayStation Home, and applications including Netflix, Hulu, Vudu, and MLD.tv. Rubenstein also explained that PlayStation plans to play catch-up when it comes to new publications that were missed during the outage. “Rest assured that you won’t miss any of this great content…we’ll be publishing to the PlayStation Store multiple times per week once commerce functionality is restored.” Rubenstein specifically mentioned missed titles like Under Siege and the MotorStorm Apocalypse demo.

It’s a big jump back into fully featured services after a month of PSN darkness. Unfortunately, this is the most detailed that PlayStation was able to get about the renewed services. The SOCOM 4 multiplayer community will have to sit tight and wait for an announcement as to when the service is fully restored, and the missed Call of Duty: Black Ops Double XP weekend hasn’t been scheduled yet. Most pressing, there are still no details on the “Welcome Back” offer for PSN customers. Sign-up for the new and improved protection system’s also hangs in the air.

But we should probably expect baby steps. PSN is clawing its way back from the brink of destruction, and if it’s taken this long for Sony to even address the initial problem of getting the system back up, we’d better be patient when it comes to its inner workings. Considering the botched job it did when initially dealing with the outage and the controversy over waiting to inform users, these are some relatively big steps in the right direction.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Before coming to Digital Trends, Molly worked as a freelance writer, occasional photographer, and general technical lackey…

Gaming

3 big things I need to see from the next PlayStation Showcase

Peter and Miles from Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

It’s that time of the year again when industry insiders are teasing that a big PlayStation Showcase will happen around June. A third-party focused State of Play happened in 2022, but now Video Games Chronicle’s Andy Robinson and Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb are both suggesting that a more first-party oriented "Showcase" could be on the way sometime during the next month, potentially during the week of May 25.
PlayStation has had a rough start to 2023, with console exclusive Forspoken garnering mixed reviews, the PlayStation VR2 impressing critics while underperforming in sales, and The Last of Us Part 1’s PC port being broken at launch. With only Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 confirmed to be on the horizon for 2023, Sony has a lot to prove during its next showcase. There are three specific things I need to see from Sony if that PlayStation Showcase does come to fruition.
Give PSVR2 purpose
The PlayStation VR2 is an impressive piece of virtual reality technology, but it lacks killer apps outside of Horizon: Call of the Mountain. New game releases for the headset have been slow since its February 2022 launch, which is likely why the $550 headset has underperformed. Sony has opted to mainly relegate PSVR2 to State of Plays or PlayStation Blog posts, but it needs to revitalize excitement for the platform by giving some of its games a spotlight in a big PlayStation Showcase.

Hopefully, there’s more on the way in terms of new AAA VR exclusives from first-party studios, as well as much-demanded ports like Half-Life: Alyx. Already announced PSVR2 games like Journey to Foundation and Synapse could also use release dates. A PlayStation Showcase is the perfect time for Sony to put out a clear road map for PSVR2’s future game library, just as the September 2021 PlayStation did for PS5. Give me a reason to strap on that headset yet again.
Flesh out the system’s 2023 exclusives lineup
PS5 needs a strong lineup for this fall as well. With the exception of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, things look pretty barren for PS5 this year after the launch of Final Fantasy XVI. Several previously announced PS5 games still lack concrete release dates and could arrive in the second half of this year. It’d be nice to get a clearer picture of Sony’s PS5 game lineup for the rest of the year; hopefully, it includes titles like Stellar Blade, the Silent Hill 2 remake, Lost Soul Aside, Death Stranding 2, and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

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Dreams live support is ending — and that’s a big misstep for PlayStation

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Sony could’ve had its own popular proprietary game engine and metaverse. Instead, it just let it slip through its fingers.

Media Molecule is ending live support for Dreams, its highly ambitious game-creating and playing tool for PS4, on September 1. Its servers are staying online for now -- and it has a few more content updates in the pipeline before then -- but after August, there will be no new tools, ports, or events for Dreams. That means it’s not coming to PS5, PlayStation VR2, and, most critically, PC.

Gaming

PlayStation VR2 is my first headset. Here’s what I think after one week in VR

A side view of the PlayStation VR2, which sits on a wood table.

Before my PlayStation VR2 arrived at my doorstep last week, my experience playing in VR was minimal. I'd reported on the industry and its games for years, but my actual playtime in a headset was limited to an Eve: Valkyrie demo at a GameStop ahead of PlayStation VR's launch, a couple of demos at trade shows, and one 15-minute session of Phantom: Covert Ops on Meta Quest 2 while hanging out with a friend.
Despite claims by companies like Meta that VR would serve as the future of communication and entertainment, the technology seemed too scattershot and underdeveloped for my liking, with many competitors putting out underpowered headsets, many of which need a wire or two. That said, part of me still wondered if it would take the right headset with the right features and game library to transform the gaming medium forever. Although the Meta Quest 2 has tempted me for some time, it was the PlayStation VR2 that finally got me to bite the bullet and embrace VR.

PSVR2 is expensive at $550, but it appealed to me with its impressive specs and the fact that it only requires one wired connection to the PS5. That was all I needed to bite the bullet. Since it arrived, I've gone all-in on the tech to make up for lost time, trying out games like Gran Turismo 7, Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Zombieland: Headshot Fever Reloaded. Although I'm impressed by the headset's power and how comfortable it is, don't consider me a convert just yet. I can't imagine it replacing traditional gaming on my PS5 or becoming my preferred social setting anytime soon, and that leaves me to wonder how high VR's ceiling can actually go.
Strapping in
My first thought when I got my PSVR2 was that the package was much smaller and lighter than I expected. VR always seemed large and clunky from an outside perspective, so I was impressed by the sleek and easy-to-unbox packaging and the headset's manageable size. Next, I had to set up the headset, which was something I was dreading as a first-time user. Surprisingly, the setup process was pretty quick after I plugged in the headset.
Within about 15 minutes, I had completed the initial setup and was already familiar with the passthrough tool. It didn't dig into my head and nose like I thought it would, mercifully. The few times I've strapped on other VR headsets, they've always felt like they're squeezing my face. That was not the case here, as I easily adjusted the headset to my liking. Even the feeling of the wire quickly became a non-factor for me as I played more and more.