Gamers across Bahrain were left cursing their consoles over Christmas after a hacking group reportedly brought down Microsoft and Sony's Internet gaming platforms.

Both the PlayStation Network (PSN) and Xbox Live were targeted, with a group calling itself the Lizard Squad taking credit for the attack, said a report in the Gulf Daily News (GDN), our sister publication.

The name is the same used by a group of hackers that has targeted Sony in the past.

Bahraini gamers spent hours in front of their television screens over the weekend staring at an error message caused by the global hack of the gaming networks.

"It was completely down during Christmas and almost impossible to access through the whole weekend," said 28-year-old Ali Bin Shams from Busaiteen.

"At first I thought it was just regular maintenance and Sony chose Christmas because it is a family day, but then I checked online and asked friends and it looks like it was hacked.

"I don't think it was for any reason - they just saw a company saying that they couldn't be hacked and saw that as a challenge.

Bin Shams added that the whole episode made him feel frustrated, helpless, and had "ruined his weekend".

Others blamed Sony and Microsoft for not being able to keep the hackers at bay.

"I was spending at least two hours a day just trying to log in," said 29-year-old Habib Abdulrahim from Zinj.

"It has been messed up from Christmas until Saturday and I doubt it will be fixed.

"I blame PSN because they didn't boost their security - Xbox was back up by the end of the second day but my PlayStation is still not working properly.

"It wasn't only me, everyone on my friends list was affected, no one could log on."

Abdulrahim said that he would have scheduled his leave differently if he knew that he won't be able to play online over Christmas.

Fellow gamer Ahmed Ashoor, 29, was still in shock over the outage.

"I heard that it was hacked so that people would spend time together but people buy PlayStations, Xboxes and games for their children at Christmas and of course they are all going to want to test them out," he said.

"So what about the rest of the world - I am Muslim and don't celebrate Christmas, I just wanted to join my friends online and have fun this weekend.

"What is Sony doing? If they can be hacked so easily that really means they have security issues - I am going to have to remove all my credit card information from their system now.

"I just don't feel safe anymore." - TradeArabia News Service