Keep in mind Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is a separate standalone company from Sony Network Entertainment (SNE). SNE is the Playstation Network where the 77 million came from (with ~12 million credit cards on file). SOE had a separate database with ~24 million accounts.

Giving away a free month is going to hurt SOE badly. DC Universe just launched a few months ago, so that right there will be a huge impact since they haven't gotten many subscription cycles yet. And the company just finished another round of layoffs, the 3rd such event in the past 3 years, this time closing 3 studios and impacting the remaining 2, including Austin where Caleb works.

People here tend to see Sony as one large faceless corporation. It's more properly a group of affiliated companies, with some of them like SOE running pretty independently with their own financials, leadership structure and so on. SOE is an LLC, one that reports currently into SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment, the Playstation group). In the past, they were under SPE (Sony Pictures Entertainment, the movie group).