After six days of silence, Sony has revealed 
more about the security breach of its PlayStation Network – and it’s much worse than expected.
The company says hackers obtained personal information for all of the service’s 70 million subscribers. Still unclear is whether the credit card information on file with the service was compromised.
Hackers have managed to cut Sony off at 
the knees in several of the most competitive aspects of this generation of video games.
For the past five days, the PlayStation Network has been offline—making it impossible for PlayStation 3 owners to play multiplayer games, download updates to titles or use their PS3 to stream movies and music. This represents the most serious outage the service has faced since its start in 2006.
Players hoping to play a multiplayer game on their PlayStation 3 haven’t been able to do so reliably for several days – and for the past three days, they haven’t been able to do so at all.
The PlayStation Network – the console’s online service – has gone down and at present, no one seems to know when it’s coming back. Sony, in a blog update about the outage yesterday, said it was investigating the cause, but “it may be a full day or two before we’re able to get the service completely back up and running.” Since then, the company has remained silent.
Your high school drama teacher might 
have suggested that the best place for you when it comes to acting is in the audience, but does a PhD give him the ability to spot raw talent? No way!
Fortunately, with the help of an Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, you can finally show the world your star potential by acting it out in some of Hollywood’s biggest blockbusters.
Since introducing the PlayStation Plus
subscription service at E3 last June, Sony has struggled to give PS3 owners a compelling reason to sign up. But the latest addition to the feature just might do it.
Starting Thursday, the company will allow Plus subscribers to save their games on an online storage system.
Sony has some mounting problems
in Europe.
Customs officials have been ordered to seize shipments of all PlayStation 3 shipments from the manufacturer and hold them in storage for at least 10 days. The orders come as LG has won a preliminary injunction against Sony in an ongoing patent dispute between the companies.
3D hasn’t exactly taken the gaming world by storm 
so far, but that’s not stopping Sony from giving the technology another big push.
Killzone 3, due out this week, is the latest installment in the company’s eye-popping shooter series. And Sony’s pulling out all the stops this time. Arguably the best graphics to appear in a PlayStation 3 game to date? Check. Integration of the PlayStation Move controller? You bet! 3D? Oh yeah — it’s in there, too.
In the video game world, there’s bundling – 
and there’s true customer appreciation.
Valve Software is showing other publishers how to beef up a software release without looking like an obvious play to boost sales. The company announced Tuesday that gamers who buy the PlayStation 3 version of “Portal 2” will receive the PC/Mac version for free.
While the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii are 
still game machines first and foremost, they’re increasingly being used for other forms of entertainment.
A new survey by Nielsen finds that non-gaming functionality is on the rise among console owners – and among PS3 owners, it even surpasses the time spent playing games.
There’s no denying that Nintendo 
is the videogame industry’s most powerful force. With sales of its handheld DS topping 43 million and the Wii selling more than 30 million, it’s the indisputable market leader.
But despite that success, there’s something very old school about Nintendo. Its consoles and games don’t capture the bleeding-edge sensibilities of the industry. That’s what makes the fight for second place so interesting.
Chris Morris: Journalist 