Sony and Microsoft struggled to respond to an apparent cyber attack on their video games networks over Christmas, leaving millions of customers unable to play games and access entertainment.
Sony's PlayStation store and Microsoft's Xbox Live network faced outages on Christmas Day, with severe disruption to the systems continuing on Friday.
About 24 hours after the initial reports of an attack, Xbox said its "core services" had returned to normal, and Sony also said it had resolved the problem.
But the attacks have raised questions about the adequacy of the companies' online defences, with customers left wondering how a relatively simple attack could take down some of the world's largest gaming networks at such a crucial time.
An online group called Lizard Squad, a hacker collective that has previously disrupted gaming systems, claimed responsibility for the incident. The group is believed to have used a denial of service attack, a tactic designed to flood a website or online system with internet traffic, forcing it to topple over.
Gamers complained about problems accessing online components of popular titles including Call of Duty and Fifa Football. Though occasional outages can occur on these systems, the Christmas period is a sensitive time for both companies as thousands will have received their new consoles, the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, as gifts.
Sony took to Twitter to acknowledge the outage on Christmas Day, saying its engineers were tackling the problem. On Friday afternoon, a company spokesman said: "We are seeing reduced reports of network issues. We'll continue to monitor."
On Christmas Day, Microsoft said it was "aware some users are unable to sign in to Xbox Live," but by the end of Friday morning, it said most of its operations had been restored.
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However, despite their relative speed in restoring services, the companies were subjected to criticism on social media. One Twitter user, @chocothundr, wrote: "Thanks @Xbox. How you get hacked by some kids and you're supposed to be a technological supergiant is beyond me." Another, @LeCastleVania, tweeted: "The PlayStation Network is down Christmas is cancelled."The PlayStation issue came with Sony already reeling from a string of high-profile cyber attacks, including an outage of more than two hours on December 8. The computer systems of Sony Pictures Entertainment were targeted by hackers angry at its movie "The Interview", a comedy about an assassination attempt on North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un.
The hackers released confidential information and emails from the company's computer networks over the internet. Sony initially cancelled the film's release after threats were made against theatres. But it later backtracked, allowing it to appear in about 300 cinemas on Christmas Day. It also released it online, while Microsoft allowed users to access the film through its Xbox Video store.
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