Contrary to the narrative created online after Sony announced that it would shut down its virtual playground down early next year in all regions including Japan, North America, and Europe, PlayStation Home was a commercial success. At least that is what nDreams CEO Patrick O'Luanaigh tells GamesIndustry International.

Sony has confirmed that the closure of PlayStation Home is eminent for both Europe and the United States. Sony Computer Entertainment said that the PlayStation Home service will shut down in European and U.S. territories on March 31 2015, the exact date that the 3-D social platform will close in Japan.

"Due to a shifting landscape, PlayStation Home will cease publishing new content on the 12th of November, 2014," Sony confirmed in a statement.

Sony announced today that, despite the PS4 selling so well, it still expects to report a net loss of 230 billion yen, or $2.1 billion, for the current fiscal year ending in March 2015. The scope and size of the net loss is a lot larger than what the company predicted back in July: it previously predicted a net loss of 50 billion yen, or $466m.

Sony is pinning this loss on impairment charges of 180 billion yen or $1.7 billion related to its struggling smartphone business

Last year at about this time Sony decided to stop releasing new content for PlayStation Home in Japan. Now the company says that it will lay the virtual environment to rest in March of 2015. A translation of the message (as detailed by Joystiq) goes on to note that the PlayStation Home services maintained by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe and Sony Computer Entertainment America will be exempt from this eventual shutdown.

Sony first launched its virtual 3D MMO-like environment for the PlayStation 3 in August of 2008 in Japan.

While Red Bull is the number one brand on YouTube (mostly because it sponsors so many interesting sporting and gaming events worldwide), "PlayStation" is also pretty popular, according to data collected by Statista and Mashable.

The Sony board has rejected a proposal by Third Point LLC CEO Daniel Loeb - one of Sony's largest investors - that would have spun off 20 percent of its entertainment divisions into a separate entity. The board's rejection of the idea was unanimous. A letter to Third Point from Sony expressed that the company sees value in owning entertainment content in this connected, digital age. Sony also told Third Point in its letter that maintaining total ownership of its divisions encourages "internal collaboration and efficiency."

Firmware version 4.46 for the PlayStation 3 replaces version 4.45, and fixes the previous issues while adding the ability to hide Trophy notifications. Users who weren't locked out of the PlayStation 3's XrossMediaBar after downloading the previous update will be able to download PS3 firmware 4.46 through the System Update menu.

For those who were locked out, Sony has released step-by-step instructions:

Sony announced via its PlayStation Blog that the PlayStation Network will be undergoing maintenance June 25 from 12:30 p.m. ET to 7 p.m. ET. The 6+ hours of maintenance will make it so that users will not be able to visit the PlayStation Store or PlayStation Home, or manage their accounts.

Sony put to bed a lot of questions this evening at its E3 Expo 2013 press conference that Microsoft stumbled with, fumbled and mangled last month. While Microsoft said it was up to publishers whether or not gamers could sell, trade, or loan their Xbox One games out, Sony threw out a phrase that resonated with gamers tonight: "True Consumer Ownership." Sony promised no restrictions on used games or rentals, loaning games out to friends, selling them, etc. This is what consumers had hoped to hear from Sony and the company did not disappoint them.

Sony Computer Entertainment Japan and Sony Computer Entertainment Asia have been consolidated into one business unit operating within Sony, according to this press release - as uncovered by Kotaku. The combined operation will now be called Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Asia.

Tonight is the night that Sony will make some sort of announcement about the future of the PlayStation brand. Some speculate that it will be more details on their next system, commonly referred to as the "PS4." Hopefully there will be some other surprises like game announcements, new features for the technology they already have on the market now and - with any luck - a price cut to the North American and European versions of the PS Vita hand-held - which currently cost as much as a brand new PS3.

Last week we detailed a new hack for the PlayStation 3 that has some in the PlayStation Network concerned that they could face another major security breach like what happened back in 2011 when millions of users' information was compromised by hackers. But security firm GFI Software says that PSN users shouldn't be all that concerned about it.

Sony's PlayStation 3 is facing a new security threat - one it hasn't seen since the system was cracked via the PSJailbreak in 2011. According to a report on Eurogamer, a new PlayStation Network-enabled custom firmware was recently released along with the publication of the console's LV0 decryption keys.

Kevin Butler may once have been the face of Sony's PlayStation 3, PlayStation Network and the PSP platform as the fictitious Vice President of various made-up departments within the company division. But apparently Sony has decided to sue the man (actor Jerry Lamber) that plays Kevin Butler and his company - advertising firm Wildcat Creek - over the Kevin Butler IP. Sony claims that Wildcat used the character in an advertising campaign for Bridgestone Tires, with a "Butler-type character" wearing a lab coat testing out Mario Kart Wii.

South Korea's new "Shutdown Law" was supposed to keep teens from gaming during a six hour block every night to focus on "more important things" like studying, but two groups have already filed lawsuits that question the legality of the new nanny state law concocted by lawmakers in the country. A group of game makers doing business in the region including NCsoft, Neowiz, and Nexon, have filed a lawsuit claiming that the Shutdown Law is unjust and unfair to them.

The PlayStation Store for South Korea will be shut down temporarily, according to a report on Kotaku. The digital marketplace for the PSP, PS3, and PS Vita will be shut down due to a new "Shutdown Law" in the country that is meant to keep gamers in the region age 16 or younger from playing games during a six hour block of time every night. The law was already imposed on the PlayStation Network.

According to the official PlayStation Blog, the PlayStation Network and related services will be down for maintenance for around 13 hours. How will we survive, I wonder? Beginning at approximately 2pm GMT / 6am PDT / 9am EDT various PSN services will go offline as Sony tinkers, tweaks, and upgrades them. The maintenance will last until approximately 3am GMT / 7pm PDT / 10pm EDT.

Sony has released an interesting list of the PlayStation 3 games that players have managed to get an elusive Platinum trophy in the most. At the top of this heap is... Assassin's Creed 2. It was followed by Modern Warfare 2, Uncharted 2, God of War 3 and Resident Evil 5. Sony social media manager Jeff Rubenstein, who revealed the top ten list on the PlayStation Blog said that all the games listed below were commercial successes.

Earlier in the week Sony announced that it would be doing 14 hours' worth of "routine Maintenance" on PlayStation Network and related services. According to a new post on the official PlayStation Blog, that maintenance will not happen today as planned.

"UPDATE: This maintenance period has been postponed. We will re-post when the date is rescheduled. PSN’s online gaming and services on Thursday, March 1, will be normal."

A message on the Official PlayStation Blog warns PlayStation Network users that the service will shut down for 14 hours for some routine maintenance. You will not be able to sign in to PlayStation Network during that time, and any websites related to it will also go off the grid until the service returns on Friday. Sony did not disclose what it would be changing or if a new update would be applied during this service outage. From the blog:

A studio formed by five ex-Sony developers last year explained why they ditched the PS3 and the PlayStation Network to develop games for Apple's iOS platform. When asked what drove them into the arms of Sony's competitors, the answer was simple enough:

In September Sony updated the PlayStation Network's terms of service to include a new clause removing the ability for customers (who were more than likely upset over the major security breach that happened earlier in the year) to file future class action lawsuits. Users who accepted the new TOS had to agree to individual arbitration instead of a lawsuit if they had a grievance against Sony. Since users had to agree to the new TOS in order to sign in to PSN, many simply agreed and moved on.

Sony's Andrew House has told Reuters that the company aims to sell 15 million PlayStation 3's in the fiscal year ending March 2012, despite a turbulent year for the company. The head of Sony Computer Entertainment revealed that sales on the console were ahead of target.

We have often wondered why the popular and free video service Crackle has not been made available on the Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3. Perhaps because it is free... Anyway that has changed this morning, as Sony has added the service in PlayStation Home - it's virtual rest stop on the PS3. Sony has partnered up the service to bring free full-length movies - including the wonderful Final Fantasy: Advent Children - to PlayStation Home. Crackle is a free movie and TV show streaming service available via web browsers or a number of other devices - most notably Roku's various boxes.

Last night Sony's new SVP & Chief Information Security Officer, Philip Reitinger wrote a lengthy post on the official PlayStation Blog, detailing some questionable mass logins. While some of those attempts to login to accounts by unknown persons were successful, Reitinger assures the public that those accounts have been identified by the company and temporarily locked down.

Ford's Warrior's in Pink initiative finds friends in PlayStation Home. An event is planned inside Sony's virtual PS3 destination to help raise awareness about breast cancer later this month. Ford is strong supporter for breast cancer research and Warriors in Pink is just one of the ways it has taken the fight to the disease; the car manufacturer is a 17-year National Sponsorship of the Komen Race for the Cure. The company says that, to date it has dedicated more than $110 million to the cause.

Sony did not break Australia’s Privacy Act during the PlayStation Network cyber attack, ruled Australia's Privacy Commissioner Timothy Pilgrim. Pilgrim’s report, released today, said that the Commission found "no evidence that Sony intentionally disclosed any personal information to a third party." Pilgrim said that he was satisfied that Sony Australia took reasonable steps to protect its customers’ personal information, including encrypting credit card information and ensuring appropriate security measures were in place.

You may think the unprecedented and massive security breach that took down multiple Sony services including Sony Online entertainment and PlayStation Network is what pushed Sony to make the changes it did recently to the PSN Terms of Service, but a CNN report points to another reason: The Supreme Court. Last week Sony changed the document for PlayStation Network asking customers to give up their rights to file class-action lawsuits against the company and its partners.

A GiantBomb report claims that, even though you may have agreed to the new PlayStation Network Terms of Service recently, there may still be an option to allow an opt-out. In a nutshell, the new ToS asks users to agree to not sue the company as part of a class action, and requires that you agree to it to gain entry to the network. The paragraph in question from section #15 of the ToS:

A little public service announcement for all PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable users that play games over the PlayStation Network in Europe: on Sunday, between the hours of 5am and 12pm British Standard time select PS3/PSP titles will go offline for maintenance.

Sony also noted that users may experience "some additional downtime after the maintenance for testing purposes."

During that time the following games (and associated websites) will not be playable over PlayStation Network: