PlayStation Network poll reveals most of you will stick with Sony

It's been a frustrating few weeks for PlayStation fans. First Sony's PlayStation Network went down, leaving headshot-hungry gamers with no way of playing their favourite games online, then Sony admitted that hackers had done a runner with personal data from over 100 million users. PlayStation Network just kinda... stayed broken, with communication from Sony extremely sparse.

Now the PSN is back online, we asked our readers whether they'd ever trust Sony again in the wake of this digital disaster by way of voting in our Facebook poll.

We asked, "After the PlayStation hack and theft of personal details, will you trust Sony again?" So far 792 of you have had your say, with just over half of you -- 53 per cent -- stating that your trust in Sony could return, but it's going to take a while.

Not everyone was so fussed about the outage apparently, with  33 per cent ticking the box marked, "Sure, what's all the fuss about?"

Despite reports that many gamers were trading in their PS3s, it would seem that Sony loyalty is high with our voters -- only 14 per cent of you responded that you'd be buying an Xbox 360 in the wake of the outage.

So it looks as though Sony could still redeem itself in the eyes of gamers. With most voters eventually willing to let bygones be bygones, the Japanese tech giant may still cling to its fanbase. But it won't be easy -- Sony's got serious work to do if it wants to smooth things over with wounded users, and we're a little concerned at Sony's lack of commitment to protecting European users.

One commenter in our poll said, "I was such a loyal fan of Sony. But I gotta have my online play. And well... it caused me to get an Xbox."

Another responded, "Never have I seen a company keep its consumers so in the dark. It's ridiculous. Makes me think they actually don't know what they are doing."

Indeed, Sony's lack of communication was a bone of contention for many readers: "If you expect your customers to be loyal you have to keep them informed."

Many commenters pointed out that as the PlayStation Network is free (unlike the Xbox's online service), there's little reason to complain when it goes down. We'd counter that while the service is free, it costs Sony money to run, so that's built into the cost of the console itself, or the games you play on it.

Our poll is still open if you want to have your say -- let us know if you'll ever trust Sony again in the comments, or on our Facebook wall.