Sony brings Qriocity, PlayStation Store back to Japan

By Geoff Duncan July 5, 2011

Sony says it is restoring its PlayStation Store and Qriocity media service to Japanese customers beginning July 6 (Japanese), some two and a half months after the company suspended the services in the wake of a massive consumer data breach. Sony began restoring PlayStation and Qriocity services in the United States and Europe over a month ago. The delay in restarting service in Japan was apparently due to Sony reviewing the data breach with authorities and providing them information on their new security system.

Restoring PlayStation Store and Qriocity services in Japan restores Sony’s online entertainment and media efforts to the same levels they enjoyed before April’s data breach, in which attackers managed to bypass the company’s firewalls and security measures and obtain data on some 77 million customer accounts. Stolen data included user names, email addresses, and passwords, although Sony says it has not found any evidence customer credit card information was compromised, and to date no unauthorized credit card usage has been linked to the attack.

Sony asked users to change their passwords, and also sprung for free identity-theft insurance for its customers, and briefly offered “Welcome Back” offers to entice customers to return to the service. The breach severely damaged Sony’s reputation with customers, and is estimated to have directly cost Sony about $170 million.

Sony customers in Japan will be able to take advantage of “Welcome Back” offerings; those offers have now largely expired in other markets.

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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

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