Japan blocks PlayStation Network reboot as security precaution

Sony announced over the weekend that it would be restoring PlayStation Network service gradually throughout the globe. However, not every country will welcome the service back just yet.

Japan, the homeland of Sony's global headquarters, is requiring at lot more than just promises when it comes to future security measures.

After two meetings with Sony execs, Kazushige Nobutani, director of Japan's Media and Content Industry department at the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, told Dow Jones Newswires that the Japanese government has asked for the following:

"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.

As much as PlayStation Network subscribers in Japan and around the world want to see PSN restored, these are questions that need to be asked and properly answered before turning the channel back on. While Sony has finally given some more clear-cut answers in the last two weeks (albeit after a long period of relative silence), perhaps it would be wiser for more countries to follow Japan's lead in this case considering how much sensitive data has been at risk and could be at risk again in the future.

The PlayStation Network is being turned on again in the United States, but not all 50 states are getting access back at once. Initally, only California and states in New England have seen PSN back online.

Related coverage on ZDNet:

• Sony reveals 'Anonymous' file was found on entertainment servers
• PSN users - How do you feel about the continued outage?
• Protracted PlayStation Network outage causes gamers to cash in PS3s, games
• Sony says PSN to return in "a few more days", gamers skeptical
• PSN breach to cost Capcom "hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars"