SOE Downtime News Around the Web

While there’s nothing new to report about SOE games, services, websites, and forums being down since 2AM PDT, there is growing coverage of this issue around the web.

Thus far, there has been no additional information posted on any SOE website, SOE Facebook, EQ2 Facebook, or the Twitter pages of any SOE employee or EQ2 team member.

News sites around the web:

• GamesBeat
• PC IGN
• BBC News
• Barron’s

And we’d be remiss if we didn’t mention that EQ2Flames is experiencing record traffic, with some 4,000 members online at times seeking news about the SOE Downtime. Some visitors are experiencing a busy message (indicated by ‘Database error’).

From GamesBeat:

Sony’s nightmare with hackers expanded in a new direction today as the company’s PC online games division shut down its Station.com online gaming web site.

Already reeling from the hacker attack that shuttered its 77-million-strong PlayStation Network, this new problem means that millions of Sony’s PC gamers are also affected by a shutdown.

The temporary shutdown affects popular games from EverQuest to Free Realms. Sony said in a note on Station.com that its investigation into the intrusion into Sony’s systems has uncovered “an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately.”

The systems are evidently separate between the PSN and Station.com, but both are housed at Sony’s online operations in San Diego, Calif.

and PC IGN:

Sony Online Entertainment said today it has temporarily turned off its servers after the company “discovered an issue” while investigating an intrusion into its system. It’s unclear at this time if this incident is related to last month’s intrusion of PlayStation Network.

“We had to temporarily take down SOE services during the night,” a spokesperson said. “In the course of our investigation into the intrusion of our systems, we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern. We will provide an update later today.”

No timetable was provided for when the services will be turned back on. Sony Online Entertainment hosts several massively multiplayer titles, including: DC Universe Online, the Everquest series, Freerealms, Star Wars Galaxies, and Planetside.

In March, the company cancelled development of the The Agency and laid off over 200 employees.

BBC News:

Sony has suspended another of its online gaming systems, following the recent PlayStation Network hack.

The company took the Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) service offline as part of its wider investigation into security breaches.

Multiplayer games including DC Universe and Facebook-based Fortune League were unavailable as a result.

Sony admitted last week that the personal details of 77m PlayStation users may have been stolen by hackers.

The suspension of SOE was announced in brief statement on its website, Station.com.

Last week, Sony said that it did not believe SOE users had been affected by the PlayStation Network hack.

A community relations spokesperson wrote on one of Sony’s support forums at the time: “We have been conducting a thorough investigation and, to the best of our knowledge, no customer personal information got out to any unauthorized person or persons.

“We are continuing that investigation and monitoring the situation carefully; should the situation change, we will – of course – promptly notify you.”

Sony Online Entertainment designs and publishes online multiplayer games for the PC, PlayStation 3 and, in the case of Fortune League, Facebook.

Barron’s:

Sony (SNE) is suffering its second security-related mishap in the course of two weeks, with a message on its Sony Online Entertainment site stating that the company shut down network operations temporarily after investigating the prior event and finding, “an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately.”

The shutdown of SOE follows a shutdown of the PlayStation gaming network on April 20th following a hack attack that may have compromised personal data of millions of users. Yesterday, Sony executives apologized for the April 20th shutdown, and said they were still working to determine the extent of possible data theft, and to try and identify the attacker, according to the write-up by Bloomberg’s Mariko Yasu.