Curious if the PlayStation Network is back up yet? These sites have your answer

While the past few weeks have been terrible, horrible, and, in some cases, very bad for Sony, many PlayStation customers haven't paid too much mind to the Japanese company's ongoing suffering. Instead, Sony's customers been almost exclusively concerned with one question: When will PlayStation Network finally make its return?

Sony hasn't been able to give a direct answer. In response, websites like Is The PlayStation Network Back Up?" have been created to monitor the restoration's progress. Sparsely decorated with social media buttons and advertisements (some of which are PlayStation-related, curiously) the site is clearly a move to capitalize on both the eagerness and fatigue surrounding the outage.

And its not alone. Another PSN status site, "Is PSN Still Down?", also offers a clear and disappointing answer to the question. A third, "Is PSN Up Yet?, goes in a different direction, reappropriating an Internet meme in its similarly-simple response.

None of the sites, of course, can predict when the PlayStation Network will return. Nor, apparently, can Sony, which planned to restore the service before the end of last week. But the company's plans were dashed as the news broke that its Sony Online Entertainment services were also affected by security intrusions.

"We were unaware of the extent of the attack on Sony Online Entertainment servers, and we are taking this opportunity to conduct further testing of the incredibly complex system," wrote Sony Communications Director Patrick Seybold on Friday, acknowledging the yearning of PlayStation owners to return to online play. In the end, Seybold failed to give customers any information as to when the PlayStation Network will be restored.