After hit by hacker attacks that cause the PlayStation Network (PSN) offline for nearly a month, Sony has announced details for the “Welcome Back” program for users in North America by distributing video games for free.

Earlier this week, Sony thanked profusely for gamers who use the PSN for his patience, support and tremendous loyalty during the service could not function.

As part of their award, Sony is giving bonuses to PSN and Qriocity music streaming users in the territory of the United States (U.S.) and Canada in the form of two new games, either in the format of the PlayStation 3 and PSP. They can do the registration for free on the PlayStation Store when it is back online.

PS3 users can choose two titles from a number of the following games: Dead Nation, Infamous, LittleBigPlanet, Super Stardust HD and Wipeout HD. As for PSP users, the choice is LittleBigPlanet, ModNation Racers, Pursuit Force and Killzone: Liberation.

The Welcome Back package also will be included :

• 30 days of free PSN Plus membership for non Plus subscribers.
• Existing PSN Plus subscribers will be granted 60 days of free service.
• PlayStation Home will offer 100 free virtual items to help welcome their users home. Additional free content will also be released , including the exclusive game Ooblag’s Alien Casino and an upgrade for Home Mansion personal space.
• A selection of free rental movie titles will be allowed to PSN customers for one weekend under the Video Service section. These titles will be announced soon.
• Existing Music Unlimited subscribers on Premium Trial will have an extra 30 days of free subscription.
• An extra 30 days + time lost for all Basic and Premium subscribers of Music Unlimited.

Sony also gave the same offer to users in Europe and South America. But Sony has not offered any compensation to its users in Asia, where the PSN network is not back in operation.

The attack on the Sony PlayStation Network (PSN) which causes the network down to a month was allegedly the hacker done through Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud, or EC2 service.

A number of speakers who understand the problem told Bloomberg, whoever the perpetrators of attacks using EC2 service to hijack the PSN servers and result in one of the largest data theft in history.

A hacker used Amazon’s Elastic Computer Cloud service to attack Sony’s online entertainment systems last month, a person with knowledge of the matter said May 13. The intruder, who used a bogus name to set up an account that’s now disabled, didn’t hack into Amazon’s servers, the person said.

“Anyone can go get an Amazon account and use it anonymously,” said Pete Malcolm, chief executive officer of Abiquo Inc., a Redwood City, California-based company that helps customers manage data internally and through cloud computing. “If they have computers in their back bedroom they are much easier to trace than if they are on Amazon’s Web Services.”

Cloud services are also attractive for hackers because the use of multiple servers can facilitate tasks such as cracking passwords, said Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner Inc. Amazon could improve measures to weed out bogus accounts, he said.

The use of hijacked or rented servers to launch attacks is typical for sophisticated hackers, according to Hilbert. Chinese hackers used the servers of a major U.S. Internet service provider in 2008 to break into a government agency and several defense contractors, according to a secret Nov. 3, 2008, cable exposed by Wikileaks.

The hackers “used at least three separate systems at the unnamed ISP in multiple network intrusions and have exfiltrated data via these systems,” according to the cable.

In some cases, hackers hide their tracks beneath several layers of proxy servers that can span the globe. A recent attack against computers in South Korea was controlled from servers in more than 20 different countries, according to Georg Wicherski, a security analyst at Santa Clara, California-based McAfee Inc. (MFE) The identity of the offenders is unknown, he said.

Last month’s incursion was “very carefully planned, very professional, highly sophisticated criminal cyber attack,” Sony has said.

“This puts cloud computing into proper perspective,” Jennex said. “Everybody’s been thinking it’s chic and ignoring the security aspect. I think this reminds companies that things that make them great need to stay under their control.”

NEW YORK - Sony CEO Howard Stringer admitted no longer able to guarantee the security of the PlayStation Network following a hacker attack that caused the leaking of data tens of millions of users, some time ago.

Japanese electronics has revived services PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment, after being offline for nearly a month due to hacker attacks. This attack is expected to force Sony to lose up to $ 1 billion.

Even so, Stringer warned that it no longer can guarantee 100 percent security for users of that service. In fact, Stringer also indicated that after a while hackers will target the global financial system.

"Unfortunately, this attack is only the beginning of other bad things that might happen. This is not a brave new world, but the new world which is very bad," Stringer told, was quoted as saying West Australian on Wednesday (18/05/2011).

On this occasion, Stringer also threw a defense related criticism that was brought to Sony for not more quickly inform the attack to the user. He said "We're trying to find out beforehand what is happening in this situation before providing that information. If your house is robbed, you'll find out first if there are missing items before contacting the police".

NIS America is bringing the sequel to ClaDun: This is an RPG stateside. The core gameplay, exploring random dungeons for loot, is the same. Saint, Magician, Ranger, and Dragooner are some of the classes being included in Cladun 2.

Saints that come with dual daggers, can cast recovery spells and use their magic to deal a final blow to undead monsters.

Rangers get a speed boost over certain types terrain like grasslands and use weapons like bows, lets you shoot enemies from afar.

Dragon slaying class can use spears.

Developer System Prisma are adding more customization options to the game. This is an RPG let players design their characters pixel by pixel, you can create a head and body for custom characters; even draw weapons. Musically gifted players can compose their own background music.

You'd be surprised how incredibly flexible the character creator is and  you can create just about any character you would like in glorious 8-bit visuals and take them through the game's dungeons.

You can create your own equipment – weapons like a folding chair in pro wrestler.

For the most part, Cladun is simple in hack and slash gameplay. Dungeons are relatively easy to get into from the get-go and the game gets progressively more difficult. Characters can be equipped with three different types of weapons: a blade, blunt weapon or a rod. Combos can be performed with blade weapons while blunt ones allow for charged attacks. Rods typically cast ranged magic spells and have a cool down meter for moderation.

In fact, Cladun probably has one of the most in-depth character building and customization systems in any RPG game as of late. There are numerous classes to pick from when creating your own character, including Warrior, Dragoon, Merchant and Wizard. Each has its own unique stats like high attack, low HP or low attack and high SP.

you'll start off with only Pudding and Souma as playable characters and eventually gain access to the other characters as they are introduced throughout the game. After clearing a number of dungeons, you'll also get access to the tools to create your very own characters. The character creation toolset is surprisingly flexible and simple to use. Simply pick a template for the character and their final boss, and start editing pixel by pixel.

This Is An RPG has quickly become my most ridiculously addicted-to game. NIS America will release ClaDun x2 for PSP as a digital download sold on PlayStation Network in August.  Especially since the game only costs $19.99. Whenever PSN comes back online, you can grab a demo from Japan’s PlayStation Store.

So far the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play is the only device that has been confirmed to offer PlayStation titles, it will be one of the first Android devices to have dedicated game controls, be PlayStation certified, and have access to a huge library of PSX classics. How many PlayStation fans out there are thinking about picking up this device when it comes stateside?

In my opinion, if you want a portable emulation PSOne as well as a phone then, this device is for you. But if you already have a smartphone with Android OS, and do not plan to replace it there will be another way to enjoy the PlayStation One game. 

PlayStation emulator for Android

I think another problem with the lack of PSOne games sales for Xperia play is that the other smartphone runs on Android - which has a universal PlayStation emulator that runs at full speed anyway. These emulators support most games, so why would anyone want to waste money on official games?

PSX4Droid PlayStation emulator was capable of running games at high-speeds, alongside many other features. However, after being available for nearly six months, recently it got removed off the Android Market.

Google has pulled the plug on a prominent PSOne emulator for its mobile OS. According to its author, "ZodTTD," PSX4Droid was removed from the Android Market without warning due to a "Content Policy violation,"

ZodTTD currently have streamlined website was working on a large update to psx4droid here. 

Tegra Zone application

NVIDIA announced on their Tegra Zone app that Sony’s PlayStation Suite will be coming to Tegra-equipped Android phones and tablets later this year. PlayStation Suite is a hardware-neutral game framework designed to bring the PlayStation experience to Android devices.

This is the first solid news of Sony's PlayStation app landing on Android smartphones and tablets since the official reveal of the PS Suite and Sony Ericsson's PlayStation-certified smartphone, Xperia Play.

Tegra 2 powered devices have the processing power to bring console-quality games to Android so this announcement is not that surprising, but it’s the first time that details have been shared about other devices joining the PlayStation Certified family.

Other reports have limited Nvidia's announcement to just Tegra 2 devices, but the company clearly stated "Tegra-equipped Android phones and tablet devices" throughout the report. This indicates that current Honeycomb-based Tegra smartphones should be compatible with the PS Suite app and games.