PSN is a huge disaster and one reason why I don’t buy playstations anymore. My ps3 was hacked 4 years ago and approximately $20 of credit was stolen from me. The thief bought a bunch of Just Cause 2 DLC and even got Achievements under my name I’m assuming to rub it in my face he was able to hack me. I don’t even own the game. So I called customer service and after much communication and a few calls, Sony refunded my credit BUT explicitly told me it was a one time gesture and if I was hacked again, there would nothing they could do for me. I was like, wait a sec, I didn’t give out my password - it’s your poor security’s fault. Why do I have a strike against me? After googling other hacked PSN users, I learned it’s quite easy to assume someone’s gamertag and retrieve personal information. This was a huge red flag for me so I decided to never patronize Sony again. It wasn’t a big deal for me as I’ve always preferred Xbox and Nintendo anyway. Playstation exclusives don’t really interest me as they tend to focus on japanese anime games and story heavy games. 2 genres I don’t care much for.

Naughty Dog didn't own the IP either, so purchasing ND at any point wouldn't make a difference for Sony.

The IP was owned by Universal Interactive Studios as Mark Cerny was heading the Universal's gaming division at that time. He approached ND and Insomniac (plus two other indie companies which turned out fruitless) to develop games for Universal.

Therefore, Crash and Spyro IPs were owned by Universal Interactive Studios, while they were developed by ND and Insomniac Games, respectively. Sony's involvement during that period was mostly funding and marketing the games.

Interestingly enough, Activision had nothing to do with those games, so here's the chronology of Crash's fate from that point forward...

- Vivendi bought Universal's gaming division
- Vivendi later purchased the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment & Sierra Entertainment
- Universal's IPs (Crash, Spyro, etc) were combined with Sierra's under Vivendi Games
- Activision merges with Vivendi's gaming arm, forming Activsion Blizzard
- In the merger, Vivendi put the entire Universal, and Sierra's IPs under Activision
- Vivendo was the majority shareholder of Activision Blizzard
- Parent company of Vivendi's gaming division started to struggle financially
- Activision Blizzard's investors decided to buyback their shares from Vivendi and make themselves independent
- Crash IP has now moved from a Universal Interactive Studios IP which's developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony, all the way to an IP owned completely by Activation

I hope you do realise that Sony's customer service reps, just like Apple's and countless other companies, are told to tell customers that a unique refund to your account is a one time gesture.

Basically, they do not want to set a precedent to make other people ask for a refund for something which's not in their policy.

It's a common customer support practice, and yet you, with all your wisdom, decided to permanently antagonise Sony over this trivial, and harmless comment. I mean you got your credits refunded, so what more did you want? 

Woo, yeah, those are some real monster IP there.  Those will move Vita systems for sure, especially in the west.

In no particular order:

Launching Vita cheaply by removing memory in order to push expensive cards.

Saying 'Next generation doesn't start until we say so'.

Launching GTS with online only saves.

Pricing themselves out of the market with the PS3 (at least for a few years).

Not thinking far enough ahead and building their online infrastructure in such a way that makes it difficult for them to make it possible to change your online ID.

Not believing in From Soft enough to fully support the release of Demon's Soul. Dark Souls only became multiplatform because of that in my opinion. 

As predicted, someone didn’t get it.  Yes I got my credit back - but I had a strike against my account.  Meaning if I’m hacked again, I’m SoL.  I need that as a customer?  Also, as I brought up - the playstation brand is more of an afterthought for me so why bother?

1. Killing Vita and blowing through $5 Billion on Xperia. They will never recoup the losses, and as long as they stay with Android their position in the Mobile space will continue to get worse.

2. Failing to unify bhind Cell and lead the Ecosystem race we have today. Ken Kutaragi had a vision for PlayStation as the ceneter of the digit space, with all products running common Cell tech, and a unified OS. Sony failed to beat Apple and Googlr when they had all the tools and the vision.

3. PSN hack. This held back their internet operations, and remains a stigma today. They have done well to move on, but there are still many who are leery to use their services due to this.


Those are the biggest things Sony either failed to capitalize on, or failed at, in my book.

Not to mention that it's an even bigger problem with Xbox, as Microsoft passwords can be quite valuable because accounts are often tied to other things outside video-gaming.  Crackers and scammers go after them hard.  Microsoft outsources basic Xbox customer service, like most other companies, and thieves use some damn sophisticated techniques.  If security is a "huge red flag" then they should probably drop Xbox, too.

Source--I used to work with Xbox.

I fully got it. You became paranoid over a common customer support comment.

You're simply just assuming that you got a strike and you will be SoL if you were to be hacked again. There's no evidence, in your case (based on your story), to prove otherwise. Personally speaking, I have been given multiple 'one time gesture' refunds from various companies.

Oh and since PS was not significant to you either way, why come here and share a rant about how you became paranoid over nothing? What's the relevance between your story and the topic in question exactly?

Ive been with XBL for over 13 years and I’ve never been hacked.  Luck?  Possibly.  But I do know they have less hacking issues than PSN.  I learned a lot when I was hacked by psn - they have some serious security issues, or at least they did when I did my research.

ironically, I worked for SCEA too at one point in time lol.