Sony continues wrestling with one of the worst technical disasters in its history, with its PlayStation Network and Sony Online Entertainment online gaming services remaining offline, marking close to a month of PSN downtime.

The company has said that it will keep its online services close longer than planned to make sure there are no more vulnerabilities on the system. The initial deadline for PSN connectivity restoration was the 8th of May.

SCEE head of communications, Nick Caplin, posted a new entry on the PlayStation blog today saying, “At this time, I can't give you an exact date, as it will likely be at least a few more days. We're terribly sorry for the inconvenience and appreciate your patience as we work through this process.”

The PlayStation Network was shut down on April 20 when it was discovered that hackers had leaked the personal information of some 77 million users. Later hacks revealed that other branches of Sony had also been infiltrated, including 24.6 million SOE accounts.

The outage may cost Sony in the billions of dollars of lost revenue, with more litigation likely to follow in the coming months. The prolonged outage have now reached as far as game developers, with the likes of Activision and other publishers losing hundreds of hours of playtime and DLC sales, while new game launches are also being hindered by the outage.

Sony has promised to provide disgruntled PSN customers with two free games for their trouble.