The story and cost of the PlayStation Network shutdown [infographic]

The spectacular and ongoing saga that has been the felling of Sony’s Playstation and Qriocity networks is certainly one that will go down in web history. After yet another shut-down last week, the networks are finally back up – for now that is.

Not only has it affected users of these networks, it has also become the online equivalent to that car accident that people just can’t turn away from.

While Sony desperately tries to woo back its understandably wary customers with packages of free services and games — or a “customer compensation package” as Sony calls it — industry analysts on the other hand are now looking at what the long- and short-term effects of this shutdown have had, and will continue to have.

Using data complied by the Ponemon Institute, which conducts research on privacy, data protection and information security policy, the Money Saving Blog gives us this infographic; an “anatomy of the most significant digital theft in history”.