Sony will not be allowed to restart its halted online game services in Japan until it provides further information on what measures it has taken since an earlier hacking incident, a Japanese regulatory official said Sunday. A Japanese government official said the country has not yet allowed Sony to launch PlayStation Network within its borders because of concerns over the security of the service.
"We met with Sony on May 6 and 13, and basically we want two things from them," Kazushige Nobutani, director of the Media and Content Industry department at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told Dow Jones Newswires.
He listed two areas where it requires further explanation before approval will be given following the incidents regarding its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment videogame services.
"The first is preventative measures. As of May 13, Sony was incomplete in exercising measures that they said they will do on the May 1 press conference," he said, adding that he could not provide details on the outstanding issues for security reasons.
The second was in how Sony hoped to regain consumer confidence over personal data such as credit card information.
Sony began a limited and phased restoration of the services Saturday, bringing the company a step closer to normalcy following an attack on its systems that compromised personal information for more than 100 million user accounts last month. It said that it would begin bringing its PlayStation Network back online in the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East.
