Totally agreed, but we also need to remember this is worse case possibility and 2.5 billion would still be significant to harm ps3. Honestly if this happens, I hate to look at Sony's financial for Q1-2. 

well thinking off top of head the costs could be

1. estimated lawsuit for this type of situation.  This isn't the first time in history, so maybe comparing to similar situations

2. if sony refunds psn accounts money.  think i saw article saying this.  While its not exactly a cost, its a loss of revenue

3. cost of oustide help to fix and to improve the security

4. loss of psn sales during downtime, again not exactly a cost but a loss of revenue

and other similar things.  not sure how you come up with figures, but to me a loss of revenue is a cost in my mind.  I mean if lets say in this week they would have made 10 million in revenue, but with psn down they get 0.  to me that is a 10 million cost. 

So in the end they may not have to fork over 23 billion dollars, but it  might be something like they missed out on 10 billion revenue and spent 13 billion on repairs and legal.  so in essenese this ends up costing them 23 billion dollars they would have had if this didn't happen

I personally think an estimated loss in profits due to this would be a much better way to analyze the costs of the situation.  If Sony would have made $5 million on psn in profits for instance, this is what it is costing them.  It isn't costing them the $15 million in revenue that they made.  My numbers are made up, but I think they get the point across.

I call out everyone who always claimed that 70 million PSN accouts are double/triple accounts or just made up bullshit! we need your arguments now,people!

you guys don't seem to understand.  they are not spending 318 per account doing stuff.

it is estimated to cost them 23 billion dollars to fix this all, whether the money is in actual costs or loss of revenue

the person who wrote the article just divided that number by the psn users #.  Thus the 318.  If you want to say that there are less users, then the 318 is just a higher number.  The 23 billion doesn't change.

its like if the president wants to do something and says it will costs americans $10 each.  IF there were less americans, that doesn't mean the cost is less.  The total costs remains teh same.  The less people the higher the cost per person is.  So lets say obama wants to add 6 billion dollars to medicare.  that is roughly $10 per person.  If tehre are only 300 million people in teh us. then that is now $20 per person.  The 6 billion doesn't change.  Much in the same way this 23 billion doesn't change. 

I got 4 accounts :P 1 from Argentina, 1 from US, 1 from Spain and 1 from Japan.

I'll cost Sony over $1200 dollars :P

Of course the fake accounts don't count... and I didn't have any CC info on any account so I'll cost Sony $0 Dollars :P and even if I did I wouldn't do anything anyways... because Loyalty and Honor come first before my greed, Lol... I'm kidding :P

Anyways, I believe they should be fine... lots of people have multiple accounts... not all real accounts have CC info and not everyone who has CC info in their accounts will sue Sony.

oh.. is that all.

profit means nothing.

regardless of it its profit or not, sony not getting that $5 million in sales this week is a loss in $5 they could have had, thus an expense of this situation.  doesn't matter if that $5 is profit or not, its money they do not get due to this