So the PSN and other Sony online services are finally back up. I’d be lying if I said the outage affected me at all… in fact if not for all of the constant news coverage on the subject, I might not have even noticed. Admittedly, my PS3 is a fancy looking Blu-Ray player, that maybe once a year or so serves as a recepticle for an Uncharted game, or other must-have PS3 exclusive.

Looking around some places online, it’s plain to see that not everyone feels this way. And for those people for whom the return of the PSN is a momentous occasion, I am happy for them to once again have online gaming.

However I am amused that merely a week ago, many of these very same people were up in arms with “I’ll never trust Sony again” and “That’s it, me and Sony are done!” (and justifiably so). And now, once again placated with their video games, all is seemingly forgiven.

It’s like watching a pack of starved dogs turning on their master, only to finally be thrown a juicy steak that totally distracts and diverts their attention with the NOM NOMing.

But c’est la vie, and such is the way of the gaming community (and perhaps human society in general). I mean, take for instance any MMO during a downtime, and you’ll see roughly the same effect. The forums are suddenly filled with rage at being unable to access the game, only to die out and be forgotten about once the game is playable again.

I have little doubt that this whole fiasco cost Sony a lot. An incredible amount of money, for sure. More than I’ll ever see in my lifetime. Though I’m not yet convinced it’s going to have as much of an impact on long-term sales as it might have seemed a week ago.

I file myself amonst the “meh, whatever” crowd. I think it sucks that Sony got attacked, and I think it sucks that it caused such an inconvenience for so many people, but I don’t blame them to the point that I’ll make claims to be “done” with Sony products. I think it’s a little naive to think that any insititution is invulnerable to some sort of breach if the right people with the right technology set their minds to it.

Only time will tell what long term impact this has, not only on Sony, but business and information security as a whole. I don’t doubt that this event is going to the subject of a lot of studies and examinations.

And let’s bear in mind the most important thing of all here… that the PSN is back online before the Uncharted 3 multiplayer beta in June.