Sony PlayStation Network offline in global outage, thousands of Kiwis affected

By Pretoria Gordon of RNZ

The online gaming service PlayStation Network is suffering a global outage.

All services have been impacted since 2.21pm, according to the PlayStation Network status page, including account management, gaming and social, PlayStation Video and PlayStation Store.

The outage means people are not able to sign in or create an account for the PlayStation Network, launch games, apps or network features, get PlayStation Video content or buy products in the PlayStation Store.

PlayStation Vita, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and online platforms are affected.

Since 1.22pm, there have been nearly 6000 reports of PlayStation Network outages across New Zealand, according to DownDetector, a site that monitors internet outages.

One PlayStation user RNZ spoke to said all game and store pages loaded blank and his console appeared unable to connect to the server.

The PlayStation Network said it was working to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

‘Couldn’t have come at a worse time for PlayStation’

RNZ tech commentator Tim Batt said the PlayStation Network outage “couldn’t have come at a worse time for PlayStation”.

PlayStation has received backlash over the announcement of the new PlayStation 5 Pro, Batt said.

It is a digital-only console, with no disc drive, and costs more than $1350, he said.

“PlayStation have positioned themselves as totally dependent on their online services, and this shows how vulnerable that makes them.”