Sony: 'Very small percentage' of PSN users canceling accounts

The past four days have been eventful ones for Sony. On Saturday, the the company began restoring the PlayStation Network after it spent over three weeks offline. Then, yesterday, the company outlined its "Welcome Back" program, which will allow PlayStation 3 and PSP owners to download two free games for each system (from a limited selection) once the PlayStation Store comes back online.

Sony Corp. executive deputy president Kaz Hirai.

Today, two of Sony's top executives discussed the PSN security breach and outage with the Wall Street Journal. Sony Corp. executive deputy president Kaz Hirai said that in the days since the PSN and Sony Online Entertainment servicers were partially restored, only a "very small percentage" have called in to cancel their accounts. He did caution, however, that it was far too early to make any major conclusions based on those results.

Hirai also talked up the PSN's improved security, saying "We have done everything possible and reasonable to make sure that [the] system is secure from attack." The recently promoted executive's boss, Sony Corp. CEO Sir Howard Stringer, also had high praise for Hirai, increasing the likelihood of his succession to Sony's top spot.

"If anything happened in this period that was positive, Kaz demonstrated coolness and leadership and reliability absent of disagreement and dissidence that was very impressive," said Stringer. He also defended the amount of time it took Hirai to bring the PSN back up online, saying Hirai's knowledge of networks allowed him to bring it back "faster than anyone else would."

However, Stringer cautioned that no system was 100 percent secure, and he said keeping SOE and the PSN safe from hackers would be a "never-ending process." "It's the beginning, unfortunately, or the shape of things to come," said Mr. Stringer. "It's not a brave new world; it's a bad new world."