If you have been experiencing trouble connecting to the PlayStation Network (PSN), you are not alone. On Monday afternoon, Sony confirmed that the service is "experiencing issues" as can also be seen from their own network status tracker. It has affected all of their services, with no clear indication as to when they will be restored.
The @AskPlayStation Twitter account confirmed the issues around three hours ago by posting a tweet:
And, as of writing, it appears that Sony is not yet out of the woods with its networking issues, as all seven of the related PSN services show connection issues with the notice: "Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, and we thank you for your patience." upon clicking on the details button for any of them.
PlayStation Network, and other online services, have found themselves increasingly targeted by various hacking groups and DDoS attackers, enraging gamers everywhere. No hacking groups have claimed responsibility and Sony is not yet stating the reason for why PSN is down, so we"ll have to wait for an official comment from the company once it is able to restore service.
Source: Engadget
Update: While the official @AskPlayStation Twitter account has only posted another update thanking customers for their "continued patience" while the services get restored, PlayStation UK on Facebook appear to have offered a bit more info on why PSN is down with the following post:
#Sony has taken #PSN (#PlayStationNetwork) offline for maintenance. This will last for a few hours from 5pm GMT / 9am PT...
Posted by PlayStation UK - Help & Information on Monday, 4 January 2016
While this information isn"t available on the official PSN Twitter account, it certainly looks like this is probably not a case of a DDoS attack against the service - so far - pending official comment from Sony on the matter.
As of this update the PlayStation Network is still inaccessible across the board, you can keep an eye on that page for when services start to come online again.
Update 2: The network status tracker is reporting that all services should be up and running.
