Capcom claims PSN downtime costs it big bucks

If you think it's frustrating that the PlayStation Network is down when you want to play games, spare a thought for Capcom, which claims it is losing hundreds of thousands of dollars due to the downtime.

Senior Vice President Christian Svensson took to the Capcom Unity forums to air his grievances over the incident known as PSNgate, claiming he personally is "frustrated and upset" by it all.

He explains that the lost revenue won't just hurt the company now - but that the missing money (which has already been budgeted for) was earmarked for the development and production of new games.

"In short, the hackers appear to be trying to "punish" Sony for some perceived injustice," he says. "They've been effective in that I suppose. But they're also punishing millions of other consumers and businesses which makes it impossible to be sympathetic to their "cause"."

Eurogamer reports that while gamers are unable to buy any new DLC or digital titles from Capcom's back catalogue, the situation is even more frustrating if you wanted to play Bionic Commando Rearmed 2, even if it's already in your library. That game (and likely several others) includes DRM which relies on an always-on PSN connection. No PSN, no game.

In his forum post, Svensson comments that he is also annoyed on a personal level - he's a gamer too, and he wants to get back to playing his games online and buying things in the PlayStation Store. It should be no surprise that his "Now Playing" list includes one PC game, two XBLA titles and even a DSiWare game, with no PS3 to be seen.