PlayStation Network is down

PSN has been experiencing a multi-hour outage. You might have trouble loading purchased digital games or seeing which friends are online.

PSN has been experiencing a multi-hour outage. You might have trouble loading purchased digital games or seeing which friends are online.

PlayStation Network (PSN) has been experiencing a multi-hour outage that started Friday evening. According to Sony’s PSN status page, account management, gaming and social, PlayStation Video, PlayStation Store, and the PlayStation Direct website are all dealing with issues.

For gaming specifically, Sony says that “you might have difficulty launching games, apps, or network features.” Sony is vowing to fix the problems “as soon as possible.”

Around when I first published this article at 7:28PM ET, a colleague wasn’t able to load their purchased digital games or see their friends, trophies, or even their online status on their PS5. At about 11:45PM ET, I tried to play Fortnite on my PS5, but the game showed an error message and wouldn’t let me log in. I was able to start my digital copy of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, however.

“We are aware some users might be currently experiencing issues with PSN,” Sony says in an 8:46PM ET post on the @AskPlayStation X account.

Sony’s status website says the issues started at 7PM ET, but Downdetector shows user reports starting to come in about an hour earlier at around 6PM ET. At the peak, there were a bit less than 70,000 reports of problems on Downdetector. An r/PlayStation thread about the outage has more than 9,000 comments.

Sony didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.

PSN had an outage that lasted for around eight hours back in October. It dealt with a partial outage in May, too.

Updates, February 7th: Added @AskPlayStation’s tweet, noted that the outage has been going on for hours, and added details about my own experiences with the outage.