Don't Panic, PlayStation Network Outage is Due to "Scheduled Maintenance," Not Hackers

You could almost hear the collective groans from gamers who discovered that Sony's PlayStation Network is offline today. Could it be that Sony is once again the victim of a hacker attack, one in which the real victims are online players who just want to get their gaming groove on? And worse yet, does this mean everyone's accounts have been compromised? Luckily, the answer is 'no'.

"PlayStation Network will be offline for routine scheduled maintenance on Thursday, January 19th from approximately 8AM until 9PM PST," Sony announced in a blog post.

Phew! During that time, you'll be unable to access the PlayStation Store on PS3, PSP, and Media Go; PlayStation Network Account Management; PlayStation Network Account Registration; PlayStation Home; and Music Unlimited & Video Unlimited services. You'll also be cut off from signing in to PSN via us.playstation.com.


"Users who are already signed into their account on PlayStation Network before the start of the maintenance should be able to stay signed in to their online session, but will not be able to access any of the services listed above," Sony said. "Users who attempt to sign-in to their PlayStation Network account after the start of the maintenance may be presented with the site maintenance notification page if they haven’t signed in recently."

Sony didn't say exactly what kind of maintenance it's performing today, but in the time, you'll still be able to collect in-game Trophies, which will be updated on your profile once PSN is back online.