Sony PlayStation Plus members will receive an automatic 5-day extension of service following a global outage that disrupted PlayStation Network (PSN) services for approximately 18 hours between Friday and Saturday, reports Reuters.
Sony on Sunday confirmed that network services were restored following the widespread disruption. However, it did not reveal the cause of the outage.
“Network services have fully recovered from an operational issue. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank the community for their patience,” the company posted on X on Sunday.
What happened?
Thousands of gamers across the globe were thrown into a digital fix when a PlayStation outage crippled its services like account sign-ins, online gaming or accessing the PlayStation Store.
From the inability to access popular games to users being locked out of their accounts, the disruption annoyed gamers across the globe leading them to share their frustration across various social media platforms. Memes and jokes were also shared to express their concerns online.
According to Downdetector, the outage affected around 7,939 users in the US and 7,336 in the UK.
How does this compare to past PlayStation outages?
While many seemed to get affected by this outage, it was far less than the PSN disruption we’ve seen in the past.
PSN disruption in 2011: A massive breach compromised the personal data of 77 million PlayStation users leading to a 23-day long shutdown and a regulatory investigation. The breach has risked the privacy of personal information like usernames, registered home addresses, email IDs, date of birth, passwords and even financial credentials such as credit and debit card details. Sony informed that the disruption was the result of a “physical intrusion” that affected the PlayStation Network and Qriocity services- its network service platform.
2014: Another cyberattack in 2014 forced PSN to go offline for several days during the holiday season.
