You can nab a slice of Sony's $15 million PSN outage settlement

News by Brenna Hillier Contributor

Published on July 24, 2014

You could score some free games as part of a $15 million settlement addressing the great 2011 PlayStation Network outage.

A settlement has been proposed and approved by Sony which would see the platform holder paying out about $15 million in content to users affected by the great PSN outage of 2011. The content on offer includes PlayStation 3 and PSP games, PS Plus and Music Unlimited subscriptions, PS3 themes and SOE Station credit.

If you were affected by the outage, you'll be able to claim a part of this settlement - assuming a judge green lights the scheme at a May 1 ruling. DualShockers has turned up a link it believed will allow you to file your claim now, but it looks pretty dodgy, actually, so we advise against it.

Up to $6 million of this content will be distributed to users who were PSN members at the time of the outage and didn't benefit from Sony's Welcome Back package. Claims will be honoured on a first-in basis, and you'll be able to choose up to two bonuses - including the same one twice, if you like.

A further $4 million worth of content is to be awarded to those who did take advantage of the Welcome Back bonus; these users will only receive one piece of bonus content, and again, first-in, best dressed. Affected Qriocity and SOE members who didn't have PSN accounts will also be compensated.

You can read the full settlement notes on Scribd.

To refresh your memory, in April 2011 the PlayStation Network went down following the discovery of an external intrusion. It took ten days for Sony to announce that user data had indeed been compromised, and it was a good month before the service came back online.

Sony was later found to have provided inadequate security measures to protect user data, and was hit with heavy fines. Its punishment didn't end there, though; although Sony provided a number of free bonuses - the Welcome Back package - in compensation for the long outage, this wasn't enough to fend off a class action lawsuit.

Thanks, Polygon.