The Playstation Network is still down and doesn't look to be getting back on anytime soon. With many gamers very annoyed by the service disruption in what undoubtedly would have been a very active Easter weekend of gaming, especially with the releases of Portal 2, Mortal Kombat and SOCOM 4 happening this week, Sony definitely doesn't look to be in a good situation right now.

Sony claims that the shutdown was intentional to protect security and investigate the intrusions due to hackers getting into the network. With their big feud still going on, internet group Anonymous has stepped forward to respond to accusations that it was them.

In a surprising turn of events, though, the group, the prime suspect in this case, have said that they aren't responsible for the hacking but that they will continue their efforts once PSN is operational. In a press release made yesterday, Anonymous said that while members of their group may be behind the hacking, the official AnonOps were not the ones to do the deed. They also cast suspicion on the claim as a whole, bringing up the possibility that the whole shutdown is actually an internal problem and they're just blaming it on hackers rather than taking responsibility themselves.

While that certainly could be the case, Anonymous's claim should be taken with a grain of salt, especially when they couldn't resist slipping in a potshot at Sony, flat out calling them "incompetent." Still, if they were the ones responsible, it's assumed that they would have no problem admitting as much, since their conflict with Sony is well-known and this would give them some legitimacy.

Whether you agree or disagree with Anon's stance on the whole Sony VS GeoHot situation, whoever is responsible for this (if anyone is) seems to have gone about a rather strange way of proving it. After all, hacking into Sony computers and causing them to shut down PSN doesn't really do any damage to them, aside from reputation. The people actually affected by this are the gamers on the sidelines, just wanting to play some games with people they know that aren't in the immediate area. It seems rather counter-intuitive to punish the gamers that the hacker(s) are claiming to be speaking for.

What do you think? Did Sony make the right call in shutting down PSN? Is Anonymous innocent in all of this? Is there really some hacker messing around with Sony computers?

Keep your eyes open as we'll continue to update you as information comes.

Source: SystemLink