Sony: PSN hack to cost us ?105 million

Sony estimates the PlayStation Network hack will have cost it £105 million by the end of its next financial year.

In a statement warning of gargantuan losses for the fiscal year ended 31st March 2011, Sony commented on the hack that forced Sony to shut down PSN for 25 days.

"Based on information currently available to Sony, our currently known costs associated with the unauthorized network access are estimated to be approximately 14 billion yen in the fiscal year ending March 31, 2012," the PlayStation 3 manufacturer said.

The hack occurred after the end of Sony's financial year, but March's devastating Japan earthquake did not. Sony expects it to have reduced Sony's operating income by £129 million.

"During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, Sony expects to record charges of approximately 12 billion yen, consisting principally of idle facility costs at manufacturing sites and an incremental provision for life insurance policy reserves," Sony said.

"In addition, there is an approximately 5 billion yen impact from the estimated net margin loss associated with a decrease in sales resulting from the Earthquake and an estimate of variable costs."

For the Sony group as a whole, a loss of £1.95 billion is predicted for the current financial year.

PSN went down following the security breach that left personal information tied to some 77 million user accounts compromised and the details of around 12.3 million credit card possibly stolen.

Online matchmaking is now available, although the PlayStation Store is still offline.

Gamers are still unable to buy downloadable content, add-ons, virtual items or full games.

Also hitting Sony's bottom line will be its offer of 12 months of free identity theft protection to its PSN members.