Sony's PlayStation Network (PSN) is finally back online after three days without the service.

Hacker group Lizard Squad attacked PSN and Xbox Live on Christmas Day, shutting both online networks offline. This left millions of new console owners being unable to play their favorite games over the holiday weekend.

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Microsoft managed to fix issues in just over 12 hours, but it took Sony more than three days to get PSN back online, despite Lizard Squad reportedly stopping attacks after Dec. 25.

The reason for the long delay has not been detailed by Sony, which says its engineers did everything they could to restore service. Lizard Squad used an effective DDoS attack to shut down the network, but did not steal any data.

Sony's PSN allows users to play online and utilize different apps on the console, and PlayStation Plus gives users access to free monthly games, exclusive discounts, cloud storage and beta testing.

Without access to PSN, users were not able to download the free games, and more importantly were not able to access any online features. For games like "Call of Duty" and "FIFA," this meant a large chunk of the game was unplayable, for "Destiny" thiis meant the game would not start.

It is not the first time PSN has been attacked, although LulzSec in 2011 stole information, while Lizard Squad only managed to take down the network.

Sony is also focusing on another big hacking scandal, reportedly the work of North Korea, taking down Sony Pictures and stealing 100TB of information from the internal system.

An investigation into Sony's network failures might crop up in 2015, to make sure the Japanese company is doing everything it can to stop hackers taking its private data. 

Tagssony, PSN, Playstation network, PS4, PS3, PS Vita, online gaming