Sony Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer has apologised to users of its PlayStation Network and other online services.
Breaking his silence on the biggest internet security break-in ever, Mr Stringer failed to provide a date when services would resume.
His comments come after he faced criticism of his leadership since Sony revealed hackers had compromised the data of more than 100 million accounts used for accessing games and music over the internet.
'As a company we - and I - apologise for the inconvenience and concern caused by this attack,' Mr Stringer said in comments posted on Sony's US PlayStation blog.
The incident may prove to be a significant setback for a company looking to recover after being outmanoeuvred by Apple
in portable music and Samsung Electronics in flat-screen TVs.
Sony is also facing a tough fight in the video games sector with Nintendo and Microsoft.
The internet breaches sparked thousands of comments on the official PlayStation fan page on Facebook and on its blog. Some comments from users said they would switch to Microsoft's
Xbox Live games network.
Although video game hardware and software sales have declined globally, the PlayStation Network is a key initiative for the electronics company.
Sony issued its first warning on the break-in a week after it detected a problem with the network on 19 April, infuriating many PlayStation users around the world. Sony said it needed time to work out the extent of the damage.
'I know some believe we should have notified our customers earlier than we did. It's a fair question,' Mr Stringer said.
'I wish we could have gotten the answers we needed sooner, but forensic analysis is a complex, time-consuming process. Hackers, after all, do their best to cover their tracks, and it took some time for our experts to find those tracks and begin to identify what personal information had - or had not - been taken.'
Mr Stringer said Sony would restore network services 'in the coming days', but gave no date.
