Update: PSN services are back online as of February 8 at 8 pm EST.
Summary
Many fans are currently voicing their frustrations with Sony over the company’s lack of communication concerning the ongoingPlayStation Networkoutage. The service interruption has already lasted for so long that somePlayStationusers are already fearing the worst and speculating that Sony has suffered another attack.
ThePlayStation Network went offlinein the early evening hours (ET) on Friday, February 7. Shortly thereafter, the official Ask PlayStation Japan Twitter account shared that Sony was aware of this development and looking into it, all the while apologizing to users for any inconvenience stemming from the outage. Many other PlayStation social media accounts echoed this sentiment in the hours that followed, but no new status update has been shared ever since.
As the outage enters its 18th hour on February 8, somePlayStation usersare now clearly growing frustrated with Sony’s lack of communication on the matter. The company’s social media accounts are currently flooded with questions about what’s happening with the service, and many vocal fans are claiming that their weekend plans have been ruined as a result of this development. One such complaint was voiced by Twitter user FedUpInTheMind, who characterized the ongoing outage “unacceptable” and called for Sony to reimburse fans as an apology.
PlayStation Users Fear PSN Outage Signals Another Sony Hack
The prolonged nature of the service interruption and Sony’s lack of communication has already prompted some fans to compare the ongoing issues with the 2011 PlayStation Network outage, when Sony’s servers were offline for three and a half weeks, between April 20 and May 14. That incident was a result of a coordinated attack on PSN servers, which resulted in the data of approximately 77 million user accounts being compromised.
The 2011Sony hackresulted in the longest PSN interruption of service in history. The Japanese gaming giant took a week to notify users about their data being compromised on that occasion. Elaborating on the reasons for the delay, the company said that it needed several days to conduct forensic analysis of the incident and identify the full extent of the attack.
For the time being, all PSN-related services—including online gaming, streaming, account management, and PlayStation Store features—remain unavailable. The outage also affects thePSN components of PlayStation PC games. Historical precedent suggests that Sony’s continued radio silence is a result of the company still being in the process of looking into the matter and not wanting to issue any status updates until it has concrete information to share.
