The Welcome Back program is live! The servers are apparently overloaded right now (no surprise there), so eligible people might want to wait a bit before downloading their free games. You have until July 3rd to take care of that!

On my end, I'll be going with inFamous and Wipeout.

Once I practice a bit in the game, I'll add a reference to it on my ION Gamma file and I'll be willing to do some online racing. Add me on the PSN to catch me up, and don't be afraid to ask for a round or three!


It's a known problem, look around a bit on the web and you'll find the answer soon enough.

One of Sony's insurance companies is suing them to avoid paying, claiming that the security hole was caused by negligence. The story's not over yet!

Here's a nice excerpt of an e-mail I just received from Sony: "Please review all changes to the TOS and Privacy Policy carefully before indicating your agreement. In particular, please review Section 15 of the TOS, which now includes a class action waiver and requires that most disputes be resolved through arbitration."

Read here: "If this happens again, you won't be able to sue us! Ha ha!"

As far as I'm aware, there's been no news from the various class action suits that were launched back in April/May. Outside of my two free PSN games, I haven't received anything!

Surprise follow-up!

I received an e-mail a few days ago from Sony about a settlement reached with the Ontario court, in the "Maksimovic and Others v. Sony of Canada and Others Settlement" case. This one concerns all Canadian consumers that had a Sony account before May 15, 2011. It's still under examination, but that should only be a formality. The following part applies to me:

"If you participated in the PSN "Welcome Back" program that followed the April 2011 service outage, you can get either a free game for your PS3 or PSP, 3 free PS3 themes, or a 50% discount on PlayStation Plus for 3 months."

I also have the option of excluding myself from the settlement to sue them later on, but that's definitely not worth the effort for me. As such, free game! I'll be able to legally apply for compensation sometime after June 10, once the legal autorities give their stamp of approval, but I can fill in and submit and paper right away.

Since I don't have a PSP, I get to pick among the following PS3 games. The first five are from the "Welcome Back" program, while the next 5 are new.

• Dead Nation
  
• inFAMOUS
  
• LittleBigPlanet
  
• Super Stardust HD
  
• wipEout HD Fury
  
• Fat Princess
  
• Ratchet & Clank All4One
  
• Medieval Moves: Deadmund's
  
• Quest
  
• Pursuit Force

I got inFAMOUS and wipEout HD Fury the last time (and haven't played either yet, haha!), and I don't know much about the others. Any recommendations?