It's a huge company, and while I'm not big on gaming, I've played some of their games. They're very rich (because they're owned by Sony which has an annual profit around $88B), so it's not surprising they were targeted, and 50 BTC is nothing for a company like this. Starting to auction data before the deadline for the ransom, however, is very inappropriate.
It's not surprising that Bitcoin is used in this situation, but considering that transactions are all publicly available, perhaps this money can be traced in the future and help bring the hackers to justice.