First Images Of PlayStation Network Back Online In California After 24-Day Outage

Written by Matt Swider on May 14, 2011

News: Sony: PSN is back up in California with more states to follow.

After a 24-day outage, PSN is back up and online in California. Gaming Target was one of the first websites to successfully log into the online network via PS3 right before 8 PM Pacific Time. Just in case you're more doubtful than Donald Trump, we've provided you with the hard evidence in photograph form. As you can see by the image above, Sony is instructing users to change their password right away and not even giving you a choice as to whether or not you want to change it.

From here, you'll see the image below enter a new password (you do not need to remember your old one, the hackers have done that for you) and then re-enter your password a second time.

A message will pop up telling you that you have successfully updating your PSN account password. From here, you'll exit to the main PS3 XMB menu, still signed out of PSN at this point, and have to log into the Network the normal way you would - only now with your brand new password. From here, you'll be able to play online and see your friends list (most of whom will be offline if you logged in as quickly as we did). Also not online is the PlayStation Store. Sony estimates that this service will be restored before the end of May.

There's still several hours left in this long-awaited weekend, so enjoy CoD: Black Ops, Portal 2 online co-op, SOCOM 4, or whatever online games you have been itching to play for the past 24 days. PSN is back up and, although there are a lot of questions that Sony still has to answer and a "Welcome Back" reward program promise to live up to, we're pretty satisfied for the next 24 hours. More questions shall be answered on Monday.

Check out these two glorious images:

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