This Sucks Arse blog, posted on 22nd April 2011, was about the reaction to Sony’s Playstation Network outage of that year. For about a month PSN was completely inaccessible following a hack attack which resulted in a panic about the security of the whole system and, finally, an apology to fans by way of three free games off the Playstation Store once the service had resumed. I posted this blog only a day or two after the start of the outage, unaware at the time that it would continue for several weeks. However, I stand by everything I said since we did, in fact, all survive and no nuclear war ensued as a result.
Once again, I have copied and pasted this blog in its original form, save for the fixing of a few typos. This time I have opted to leave out the Public Service Announcement tacked onto the end of the post because I think you get the picture by now.
As I’m sure many of you are aware, yesterday the Playstation Network fell foul of an unanticipated “Outage” that has caused “Out(r)age” across the globe (see what I did there? Pretty clever, huh?). Well, this Darkfurmatte Special is an opportunity to lend my voice to those outraged motherfuckers around the world, united in their hatred of their beloved console, the PS3.
- Rolled on the thighs of virgins
I own a PS3. This is a fact I was once proud of, but now, after almost 48 hours without the PSN, I am changing my mind, turning on the console, biting the hand that once fed me. Sure, I rarely game online; sure, I very infrequently shop on the Playstation Store; there’s no denying that this outage affects me very little, if at all. But to admit that is to overlook the very fact that PSN is my God Damned LIFELINE, and its absence has left an echoing void in my life that nothing else can fill. And I understand that for those out there who do nothing but wake up in the morning, flip on their PS3 and play MAG or Black Ops with faceless strangers until it’s time to go back to bed, this service blackout must be HELL. Worse than the Western paranoia post-9/11, more devastating than the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, more life-changing than the Blitz, Pearl Harbor and the Kennedy assassination all rolled into one.
I’ve had my PS3 for about 2 years now, and if I add together all the times PSN has been down then I find that it amounts to an absolutely shocking 0.684% of the time, a fact that I find wholly unacceptable. Can you imagine any other product in the world that suffers a less than 1% temporary failure rate? What would happen if this happened with cell phones or computers? There’d be chaos in the streets: riots, looting, nervous breakdowns and potential global war (but this latter scenario might not be such a big deal, since Black Ops and MAG have been training skilled fighters for years).
- Bringing the Battle to Sony HQ
Nevertheless, we are left with the fact that PSN has now been down for over a day – during the Easter holidays, no less! – and gamers in every country of the world are left with nothing to do. Because let’s face it: we need those game updates NOW; we will wither without that Dead Space 2 DLC that allows us to use different weapons and wear different costumes; life is not worth living if we can’t download that all-important “Urn of Sacred Ashes” HD Dragon Age: Origins trailer that we’ve all seen a hundred times; and don’t even get me started on the repercussions of not being able to play multiplayer co-op or deathmatch on Call of Duty.
The fundamental truth of it all is that Single Player Campaigns suck arse. Consoles weren’t invented for that shit! No. Consoles were invented so that I could play the same scenario over and over and over again with a bunch of dumb-fuck assholes who exploit glitches, n00bs (who I shall pwn) and kids who revel in the opportunity to call me old and question my ability to hold a controller – surely I have arthritis or alzheimers or some other serious age-related condition that may or may not begin with the letter “a”. And these people must be taught a lesson. And that is what multiplayer is for. There are no n00bs in single player campaigns. There are no arrogant, pre-pubescent dicks cussing me with juvenile, playground put-downs before I pwn their asses. There are no dumb-fuck assholes. There is only a computer-controlled opponent who may or may not present me with a challenge.
And that’s the problem. PSN is the only way that I can feel bigger, smarter, more masculine and more skilled than other people. PSN is my very being. And now Sony has taken that away from me. My rage knows no bounds. This is why, within five minutes of the network going down, I pledged to throw my PS3 in a dumpster and buy an XBox360, the very console that I have spent years belittling, making fun of and generally treating like dirt. Yes, the XBox sucks Big Time, crafted as it is from the semen of Beelzebub Himself, designed and constructed by Lucifer’s minions and distributed by Micro$oft sympathizers, cronies and well-bribed suppliers. But XBL is a service that requires an annual subscription and never goes down. Except for when it does. But even then, my research reveals that XBL do an outage properly: no 12-48 hour stoppages for them – when XBL goes down it goes down for a solid two weeks. That’s how you do an outage. No half measures for Microsoft, you mark my words.
- Who knows how many gamer points that’s worth?
I read a post on a forum by some guy who said that he only had two PS3 games, and both of them were online only. I can feel that brother’s pain. Can you imagine forking out $600 for a games console and then having only two games? And the indignity of them having no capacity for offline play? I know there are some skeptics and naysayers out there who will call him a dick for wasting that kind of money, who’ll laugh at his narrow-mindedness or the fact that online-only games are, generally, pretty shit, but can you imagine?! Now all he has is a big black box that can only browse the web and play DVDs and Blu-Rays. I mean, if he wanted that he could have bought a Blu-Ray player for a lot more money. Or a computer. But he got a PS3, and now it’s all wasted because he can’t play his two games. I’m welling up with tears just thinking about the poor guy – how he can summon the enthusiasm to wake in the morning is beyond me.
I could rant on for hours about this. I find the whole situation disgusting and appalling. When I’ve finished here I’m going to put on Wolfenstein, play the single-player campaign and spend my entire afternoon complaining about how I can’t log on to the multiplayer – that is how absolutely furious I am about the whole situation. So I’d like to finish up with a rally cry to all PS3 users out there to unplug your Playstations, repackage them in the boxes that you have no doubt thrown out, find your receipt that has probably long-since ended up in the garbage, and take them back to the stores from which you bought them, many of which have probably by now gone into administration, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection or just plain vanished from the high street or shopping mall. Get your money back and put it towards a low-spec XBox360. Make sure you keep some in reserve to pay for your first year’s subscription to XBL. Trust me: the Playstation 3 is not worth it. Keep that 0.684% in mind and realise that Microsoft is the way forward. Microsoft is your friend. Microsoft is your whole life. All hail Microsoft. All hail Microsoft. All hail Microsoft. All hail Microsoft…..
- Satan’s Little Helper
The Daily Heretic 