Sony's PlayStation Network (PSN) and other Sony services have finally started undergoing revitalisation, with restoration services starting their roll out yesterday.

President and CEO of Sony's PlayStation division, Kazuo Hirai, posted a video address yesterday on the official PlayStation blog in which he detailed restoration plans, apologised for the delay and stated that Sony would be doing everything in its power to regain customer trust over the coming months.

Sony's PSN, Qriocitiy services as well as Sony Online Entertainment were taken offline last month in widespread hacker attacks, resulting in almost a month of downtime on its online gaming services.

According to the PlayStation blog, phased restoration of services is taking place, beginning in North America and then spreading to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the Middle East (which hopefully includes South Africa).

Sony stated, “The process has begun and some countries are being turned on now, so please be patient as we reach you.”

The first phase of service restoration will include PSN and Qriocity services, online gameplay on PS3 and PSP, friends lists and chat functionality, PlayStation Home, as well as some video rental and other third party services.

Among the improvements made to the network's security in recent weeks, Hirai named increased levels of encryption, additional firewalls and early warning systems.

When PS3 users are reconnected to the network the first thing they'll have to do is reset their PSN passwords (mandatory). The password change must be done on the same PS3 console on which you initially registered for PSN services, and if this isn't possible you'll have to use validated email confirmation.

At the time of writing South African PSN services still appear to be down. For more information visit the PlayStation Blog.