Sony Accidentally Erases List of Anniversary PS4 Winners

Gamespot Link

Sony in Japan has accidentally erased the list of all 123 winners of its PlayStation 4Anniversary Edition contest, meaning it will need to restart the competition.

The corporation has offered its "deepest apologies," after determining that all data of the winning contestants is irretrievable.

"Our deepest apologies for the trouble we have caused to those who entered the previous campaign," Sony wrote on its website, as translated by Kotaku.

Between December and January, customers in Japan who bought either a PlayStation 3, a PlayStation 4, a PS Vita, or PlayStation TV, were eligible to receive a calendar attached with a unique code.

Of those customers, Sony picked 123 codes as the winners, and was prepared to send each a highly sought-after 20th Anniversary PlayStation 4, of which only 12,300 exist worldwide.

Sony asks that those who still have the calendar codes to resubmit them for the competition. Those who have thrown their codes away after can still enter via a more elongated process, whereby they submit their hardware's serial number, which Sony can cross-reference as being purchased during the competition period.

The company also assures that, while it had lost the crucial data, user details have apparently not been compromised. It did not explain how it lost the information.

In December, Sony marked the 20-year anniversary of the PlayStation 1 launch by manufacturing a custom PS4.

Packaged in a special commemorative box, the custom PS4 is resplendent with a familiar silver/grey finish, with a small insignia etched onto the chassis that shows each unit's unique number. The DualShock 4 controller, meanwhile, is coloured in the same manner and brings back the original PlayStation logo. A closer look shows that the controller's touch-pad has also been decorated with 20 marked in the pattern.

Just.....lol

Sucks for those who won!

Holy effin yikes. I'd be livid if I won/lost

That's not going to end well..lol

On that list was the Driveclub PSN+ Lite free edition release date. Ooops.

I'd sure hate to be in that "employees" shoes.

I like the title, makes it seem like Sony is an individual.

That sensationalism yo. :D

It was all a scam to get people hyped for it

they were never giving any away for free it was all just a big show to sell a ton to people

Lol what the ****

How does crap like that happen in a multi billion dollar company?

Very easily. Unless you've worked in a very large corporation, you have no idea the level of stupidity some departments operate at.

I've seen worse stuff happen. It sucks for the winners though, I hope it all works out for them.

Greatness Awaits

Sony is now hacking itself.

Along with The Last Guardian and Agent's release date, the March PS+ titles, and DriveClub's Plus Edition's date.

Sure they won't win but someone should hire a lawyer and sue. S'all good man.

Did the previous winners get an email or something indicating they won?

Sucks for those peeps if that happened. It reads like it didn't go that far though, not sure.

Sony Japan: Lets pick someone on psn and use share play to pick the winner

Kermitthefrog: enable share play i'll help you pick a winner

Sony Japan: oh snap he just deleted the file

Damn that sucks lol.

The worst part of this is that 123 people were picked for this, they won, they would have gotten this limited edition console. Now since that list has been deleted they will be going to other people who would not have gotten them previously...

Obviously no one will ever know if they were one of the 123, however giving them away after a mess up like that will piss people off to no ends and always leave every who entered wondering if it was them. Sony should just bury this giveaway, I think the PR and consumer relations sting would be less severe if they just did away with the contest entirely.

YES instead of giving away anything sony should keep everything and sell the rest for increased price for messing this whole thing up sony deserves the cash

@ProtossX: No, they should just sell them for the $500 price that they cost and forget all about this.

yeah but don't you think thats illegal to host a contest and not payout the winners? im not a lawyer but that sounds pretty sketchy, if i bought something and said i qualified for a raffle if it doesn't happen i think thats illegal just saying you atleast have to host it etc or people might sue

Well, at the very least nobody that won knows that they won, and those that want to win and are mindful of the contest can resubmit. Heck considering many probably won't resubmit just means those that are mindful enough about the contest to even care now have a better chance at winning.

Still, a very shitty thing for Sony to do.

Freaking hilarious.

Were the winners already announced?

Holy shit that's bad.

So THAT'S what happened to The Last Guardian, someone accidently deleted the source code and they had to start over.

Holy shit that's incompetence. Also why didn't they have the data backed up?

Now that's just embarrassing

@chessmaster1989:

Lol, don't be silly, everybody knows you only keep one copy to avoid being hacked

I wonder if they are going to lose the prize machines next?

The list of winners isn't missing. They were just given to Team Ico. Problem is that no one can find Team Ico or The Last Guardian.

did they hear about onedrive,dropbox or something even my dad never lose data again it's auto backup to onedrive

That sucks greatly, I cant help but think those winners will turn around and flog them online for 10x the price anyway but then against that's me generalizing. I would think Sony would be smart to have this backed up. Oh well I guess not.

lol what you can't hack cloud storage like onedrive or dropbox

Man, if the list of winners were already announced only to here this news.

if that was me i would be beyond pissed.

They could have saved time and money and outsourced it.

so much good news coming out from Sony lately...

I guess logic doesn't always take precedence, but wouldn't printing a copy or e-mailing it to multiple staff make sense? I guess they avoid more flack if the winners were never publicly made aware, but it's still a ridiculous situation.

Insert Sony Deleted X jokes for months to come....

Sony is soo incompetent its scary.