PSN Returns

It's not a joke. It's really happening. The official Playstation Blog writes that PSN was phased back into service inside the United States and Canada in the last several hours.

The official Playstation Twitter had even given a play-by-play on which regions were coming up first, apparently starting in the northeastern states and then jumping to California after that. An updating map was also provided and was colored in as PSN came back to life.

PSN will also prompt PS3s to update with newest firmware which was made available several hours prior to the network relaunch on the official site. If you didn't download it from there, it will prompt you for the update when you try to get back on PSN. It will also prompt you to change your password, so be sure to think of something creative.

I'll admit, I didn't feel as affected as some that had gone as far as to trade in their PS3s for Xbox 360s. After updating my PS3 and changing my password, there wasn't much fanfare after that. Granted, people will finally be able to blast each other in the face in online match ups now that it's back, but with the Store still down, it's still a mixed blessing for some that can't redeem certain codes for DLC through it.

But for PSN's team of engineers, I'm sure that it has been a long and stressful road to get to even this point. Despite the bad press and further threats against the network, they had pushed on. A lot of the new improvements that Sony promised will be transparent against the backdrop of Fatalities and co-op. There won't be a virtual ticker tape parade here, other than in watching players sign back in. Yet for Sony and its team, that might be reward enough.