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:

One of our readers (who wishes to remain anonymous) passed along an email from Sony Entertainment Network customer service on Friday saying that the company had accidently overcharged them sales tax related to the period between November 18, 2010 and April 11, 2011. While his email noted that they overcharged him by 0.06 cents, we have seen at least one other email saying that the company overcharged a customer by $9.24.

Sony announced plans to release the multiplayer component of Guerrilla Games' Killzone 3 as a standalone download on the PlayStation Network, but the best part of this news is that it will be free to play. Sony made the announcement during the most recent episode of the Sony Blogcast. The one caveat is that level progression will be capped, though to what extent or exact point we do now know.

A petition on Change.org asks Sony's Chairman to change the number of devices that can be activated from the current two to the original five on PlayStation Network. According to the creator of the petition, the November 2011 update to the PS3 stopped any activated PS3's beyond the first two from being able to download content from the PlayStation Network.

"This has effectively turned many PS3 consoles into very expensive paper weights!," says the main message on the petition page.

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.

With the pending release of PlayStation Vita in Japan, Sony has finally revealed how owners of UMD-based games will be able to get digital versions of them on their new PlayStation hand-held devices. All games will have to be re-purchased to be played on Vita, but those who can prove via UMD that they already own games will get a discount when re-purchasing the same content digitally.

In an interview with Develop Epic Games President Michael Capps says that console makers need to loosen the stranglehold they have on developers when it comes to pricing. Capps says they need to do this because game revenues have shifted to service and micro-transaction model. Currently developers can't decide what the price of their games on consoles should be because those prices are already set by the console makers.

While many customers would have pre-ordered the PlayStation 3 version anyway, back in June of this year EA promised that it would include a full version of Battlefield 1943 on the disc as an added incentive to buy it. Yesterday early adopters of the PS3 version figured out that EA broke its promise because the game was not actually on the disc. To add insult to injury EA made no excuses about the fact, nor did they offer an apology to customers.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released new guidelines on Thursday that require publicly traded companies to disclose when they are the victim of a security breach or cyber attack. The new guidelines are the result of members of congress pressuring the watchdog agency to add them following several major cyber attacks earlier this year. Senator John Rockefeller is one of those lawmakers.

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.

Yesterday we reported that Sony Computer Entertainment America planned to use its PSN Online Pass scheme for Resistance 3, which would effectively charge used game buyers $10 to play the multiplayer portion of the game. It turns out this is not an isolated incident but Sony's new modus operandi when it comes to used games that contain a multiplayer component.

Sony will be rolling out its PSN Pass for the multiplayer aspects of its upcoming game Uncharted 3. As it did earlier this year with Resistance 3, Sony will implement a "PSN Pass" code on Uncharted 3. This means that when you buy a copy of the game brand new at retail it will come with a special code specifically for multiplayer that you will have to activate the first time you play online. Should you sell the game the next person that buys it will have to turn around and pay $10 to get access to multiplayer.

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:

An interactive entertainment lawyer tells GameIndustry.biz that the new wording in the PlayStation Network terms of service is geared more towards consumers in the United States and is probably not enforceable in the United Kingdom due to existing laws that prevent such contracts.

In case you've forgotten it from yesterday, here's what paragraph 15 of the PSN terms of service states:

If you are a member of Sony's PlayStation Network, chances are you were greeted with an email from the company this morning telling you that that the terms of service for the network are about to change. The big change, in case you haven't received that email yet, relates to your ability to sue them. From section 15 comes this wonderful new clause:

Sony is claiming that it may have a solution for PSP UMD game owners as it relates to using them on your spiffy new PlayStation Vita when it is released sometime in March of next year. Sony is considering some kind of special program to offer special download versions of games consumers own on UMD as replacements, according to Destructoid.

Sony has hired a heavyweight in its ongoing fight to protect its online game services from hackers. The company has hired Philip Reitinger, former director of the U.S. National Cyber Security Center, as its new chief information security officer.

Sony says this week that, following one of the worst security breaches in recent memory for any company, that sales via its online gaming service are exceeding numbers from before the attack occurred.

As part of a Sony conference at the IFA electronics show, Sony CEO Howard Stringer said that the PlayStation Network has recovered and is now doing better than ever, with 3 million new customers since coming back online earlier this year.

London's theater world is apparently about to get a taste of video game culture thanks to Sony, Resistance 3 and London theater group Punchdrunk. Running September 1, through Sunday, Punchdrunk performs "…And Darkness Descended," an "interactive theater experience based on the game Resistance 3, where participants must survive, by cooperating against alien invaders (or not cooperating, as the case may be). Punchdrunk is keen on performing in a way that encourages lots of audience participation and this particular performance should be no exception.

Speaking at the recent Edinburgh Interactive conference, Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard said that Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo all opposed the idea of the company's MMO Runescape letting players interact with other players on rival platforms.

"Some console owners wanted us to charge five Euros for Runescape. What? It would be crazy to charge for Runescape on consoles," he said. "But Sony was ahead of the game, they said they get it. They understand free. But all three said, 'okay, but, we won’t let our console play online with any other'."

Sony Computer Entertainment announced that it will cut the price of its PlayStation 3 console by $50. The company, who made the announcement at Gamescom in cologne, Germany, said that the 160 GB model will now sell for $249, while the 320 GB model would sell for $299. The price cut is global and takes effect immediately.

At the annual Black Hat hacker convention that happened in Las Vegas this week Sony earned a dubious distinction of the security breach that took several of its services down for nearly two months. The awards are called "Pwnies" and - unless you are a hacker - you don’t want to be "honored" with on. Sony earned the "Most Epic Fail" award for the massive security breach that brought down the PlayStation Network and related services for nearly two months earlier this year.

Youness Alaoui, known better by his online persona "KaKaRoTo" and for being the first man to develop modified firmware for the PS3, sits down for an interview with PlayStation LifeStyle to talk about the PS3, piracy, black hat hackers, and whether Sony owns its system or consumers do. Alaoui, who describes himself as a software engineer of Moroccan origin currently living in Canada, says that his passions are programming and open source development, which he has been doing for over 10 years.

It may have taken longer than expected but Sony's various services related to the PlayStation 3 are back online all over the world. As part of an apology by the company, it offered a number of free games to PSN members such as Infamous, LittleBigPlanet, Dead Nation and WipEout through a "Welcome Back" program. Sony will be delighted to hear that the program has been called a resounding success by research firm EEDAR.

EEDAR, referencing IGN GamerMetrics data, said that all four Welcome Back titles were in the top 25 of consumer reported title acquisitions in June 2011. Additionally 17 percent of IGN users indicated that they acquired a PSN digital title in June 2011, up from 13 percent in March 2011 before Sony had to take down PSN.

But the most interesting data point in the report indicates that the Welcome Back program may have boosted PS3 game sales as well. From the report: