Global-scale PlayStation Network disruption experienced by Sony
PlayStation's support team announced on Saturday that users should be able to utilize online features without any hassles, after reports of outages surfaced on Friday. The service disruptions began at 7 p.m. ET on Friday, according to PlayStation's status website. The outage left many users struggling to manage their accounts, engage in gaming, access videos, and utilize the PlayStation Store and Direct services both online and on their consoles, such as the PlayStation 5.
The outage marked one of the platform's longest service interruptions to date. In April 2011, most PlayStation Network subscribers suffered a months-long service blackout following a data breach.
PlayStation and Sony did not respond to CNN's inquiries. The cause of the outage remains undisclosed. Some users reported regaining access to the service on Saturday afternoon, although others claimed this was merely temporary. PSN boasts an estimated 116 million monthly users, as per Sony Interactive Entertainment's September 30 estimations.
On Friday night, Marvel Rivals' services team, the developers of a game released in December across various platforms, including PlayStation, posted an update on Twitter about potential difficulties for users to launch games, applications, or network features. They were actively collaborating with the PlayStation team to address the issue.
Fortnite's services team also posted an update to Twitter on Saturday afternoon, stating that users were able to log back into the platform on PlayStation devices, but not all game services were restored entirely.
It's important to note that this issue affected various PlayStation devices, including the PS5, PS4, PS3, and PS Vita, leading to widespread inconvenience for users worldwide. The exact cause of the outage remains unknown, with Sony yet to provide a clear explanation or estimated timeframe for full restoration.
Sources:[1] https://www.gamesradar.com/playstation-network-outage-psn-status-sony-ps5/[2] https://www.pcgamer.com/playstation-network-down-users-report-outages/[3] https://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/playstation-network-outage-latest-status/[4] https://www.polygon.com/platform/playstation/2022/2/8/22921588/playstation-network-outage-status-ps5-ps4-ps3-direct
Business operations were significantly impacted due to the outage, with users unable to access the PlayStation Store and Direct services. Sony Interactive Entertainment, the company behind PlayStation, has a substantial user base of approximately 116 million monthly users.