It's baby steps for PlayStation Network, with developer sources informing me the developer version of PSN is online. Whatever steps Sony took to get PSN up and running, however, has broken some pieces.
Right now, developers are unable to register new accounts on PSN, only perform a recovery process on individual accounts. The problem? In order to facilitate testing, developers often created many, many dummy accounts with fake personal information. In order to recover an account, you need to know the personal information entered when the account was created. No surprise: most didn't write that down.
In order to access PSN, developers have been asked to install an updated firmware.
When reached for comment, Sony would not confirm the status of the developer-side PSN.
"We said in this post last week that we've begun internal restoration," said a spokesperson.
As I reported last night, PSN's three week hiatus has directly affected game development at several studios, as some have been unable to engage in active multiplayer testing for nearly a month now. As developers are able to bypass the login screen, shooters have been largely okay; those games connect to servers running independent of PSN. Games that access the friends list do not have the same option.
The continued issues have frustrated developers I've talked, too, while inspiring relief in others.
"I've never been more grateful to only work on single player games," said one developer.
