UPDATE: neoxthexone has followed up with us to detail that he possesses two non-jailbroken PS3s. Meanwhile, he does not own an Android phone, nor possess the knowledge or desire to use the Network Spoofer application some are mentioning. The mystery remains unsolved… for now.
ORIGINAL: So, this is really, really weird.
PSU community member neoxthexone posted a thread in our official forums about a week ago asking for help with a PlayStation Network issue. Now, this isn’t your typical “can’t connect to PSN” or “my redeem code isn’t working” issue. No, it seems that neoxthexone was being trolled–quite literally, by Sony.
As neoxthexone’s image shows, his PSN profile’s avatar (which was supposed to be of Nathan Drake) instead appeared as a chopped-up version of the infamous internet trollface.
Creepy, right? So… what’s the deal? It’s highly unlikely that Sony would use this image as a back-up in case your avatar fails to load, just like the website elitist-gaming (besides, that default is the generic grey smiley face). Is this a rare glitch where server code incorrectly references a random internet image? Was it a hacking attempt against our PSU family member?
It’s hard to say, and Sony doesn’t seem to know either. neoxthexone tried calling and emailing Sony customer support. Here’s how he describes the responses:
“I rang up but they told me I had to report this online, but they did check themselves to see if my account has been logged in by anywhere else using the PS3’s they couldn’t give me any information on IP addresses, though.
The only explanation the guy could give me was it might of been the server having errors, I don’t think thats it because having an image of a trollface is way to specific.”
And later…
“Emailed Sony they replied back with basically change your password and email address on the account.”
We’re reaching out to neoxthexone for more details right now (hit us up via PM!), but if you’ve seen the same craziness on your XMB, hit us up in the comments below. We’re also reaching out to Sony for comment, so stay tuned.