We've heard over and over again about the plight of the PlayStation 3 user in the weeks since the PlayStation Network was unceremoniously taken away from us. We have heard the screams of rage directed at the online brigands who robbed them of the ability to enjoy Mortal Kombat multiplayer and peruse PlayStation Store updates, their cries piercing the still air of the Internet's endless night like a mother whose child has been stolen by gypsies.
Svensson, presumably in happier times.
But what of the true victims in all of this? What of the peasant publishers, who rely upon Sony's online fiefdom for their daily bread and plague medicines? Well, they're pretty pissed off too, if this missive from Capcom VP Christian "Sven" Svensson is any indication.
Speaking on the Capcom forums, Svensson replied to a user who asked about the company's stance on the matter. While he avoided taking a super-duper official company stance, Svenson expressed his own frustration and anger over the outage.
As a consumer, I also play games online on PS3, which I can't do... and
likely my personal information is also compromised. Secondly I like to
buy things in the PlayStation store and that I can't do right now.
As for the ramifications of such an outage for the publisher's financials, Svensson minced few words.
On a related note, as an executive responsible for running a business,
the resulting outage obviously costing us hundreds of thousands, if not
millions of dollars in revenue that were planned for within our budget.
These are funds we rely on to bring new games to market for our fans.
It's something that's been alluded to by other developers and publishers since the outage's first week, but up until now, no one's put quite such a definitive stamp on exactly how badly this is messing with everyone else's bottom line. And while it's certainly been easy for people to express frustration at Sony directly over their handling of the PSN situation, Svensson made it clear that the hackers responsible for the original breach are ultimately the ones that have drawn his ire.
In short, the hackers appear to be trying to "punish" Sony for some
perceived injustice, and they've been effective in that I suppose. But
they're also punishing millions of other consumers and businesses which
makes it impossible to be sympathetic to their "cause".
