PlayStation 3 (Photo by PseudoGil)

The PlayStation Network connects gamers who use the console around the world.

“If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number and expiration date may have been obtained,” Patrick Seybold, senior director for corporate communications at Sony, wrote in an e-mail to the New York Times.

The hackers also may have accessed other personal information, including names, e-mail addresses, birthdates, usernames and passwords, Sony announced Tuesday.

Sony has been criticized for how it has handled the affair, which has left the PlayStation Network down for nearly a week and has also affected Qriocity, an audio and video streaming service for Sony televisions.

The New York Times reports:

Complaints about the outage — and about Sony’s relative silence — have been mounting for several days on Web sites like Twitter and on Sony.com. “Sony is pretty much doing everything wrong,” said Carl-Niclas Odenbring of Releasy Customer Management in Sweden, which helps companies manage social media. Mr. Odenbring said his daughter, age 6, plays games on her PSP, “and has already tired of that being unavailable.”

“She doesn’t have any direct purchasing power, but her indirect influence in what my wife and I buy is enormous,” he said. “Sony is losing the battle over her.” His daughter is playing games on an iPad now.

Initial blame for the attack was placed on Anonymous, a group of hackers who have attacked Sony in the past, but the group has not claimed responsibility.

“For once we didn’t do it,” Anonymous's website said.

Sony says it has hired an outside security firm to investigate the intrusion and has begun the process of rebuilding its system.

The attack on Sony has also extended the beta testing of "Infamous 2," a game produced by Sony developer Sucker Punch Productions. But the game is still scheduled to come out on June 7.

Some fed up PlayStation users have already cancelled their accounts.