Always look on the bright side of life – as this Redditor points out, maybe people will get a free game out of this… Not sure there’s many that Sony can offer that the most-affected won’t already own, but we can dream.

The comments on that post are a lot less optimistic about the chances, mind you…

The only positive thing from r/playstation

Matt Bolton

“I’m finding that I can play downloaded games on my PS5 (original launch-day flavor, thank you very much), as long as I’ve played them at some point in the past. My partner’s been paying the Horizon remake for hours and had no idea there was an outage, and I could fire up other stuff I’ve played recently.

“But as soon as I delved into games I’d downloaded on a semi-regular PS Plus browse, but had never fired up, I got the same kind of errors that Jake’s been seeing. Well, I got an especially bad one where Temtem got stuck in an error message loop that meant I couldn’t even access the switcher menu (pressing and holding the PS button got me to a menu I could actually use, though).

“It’s clear that the problem is the inability for the PlayStation servers to validate that you’re allowed to play the game file, but it seems that if you already got the licence, you’re okay – well, in my case, at least.”

And here’s more from Jacob:

“I’ve also fired up a PlayStation Portal, which can either connect to a PlayStation 5 console on my local network or play a game through the cloud.

“When trying to connect to stream a game from the PlayStation Network, it actually ironically pulls up a base Android error with an HTTP_response_code_failure error. It’s a little strange, but it likely means that it can’t connect to the cloud and freezes the Portal itself.

“I then shut the PlayStation Portal off, and on a fresh boot, it shows the PlayStation logo with a loading bar underneath and then displays a similar error code, though I can’t really make it out.”

Here’s some more from Jacob:

“Just as quickly as I could still browse the PlayStation Store and PSN tabs, my luck has run dry. I now see a ‘Can’t load’ text display and the option to return home. Simply confirming what we already knew – PlayStation Network is down.

“Under ‘Your Collection,’ I can still view my entire library within Game Library. I am also attempting to download some other titles, including EA Sports Madden NFL 25. I’ll report back if I can get them to install, and if that happens, whether I can play the title or at least open it. For now, the download is starting.”

Jacob Krol

“I just turned on my PlayStation 5 – slim with a disc, in case you’re wondering – and while the PlayStation Store is accessible and my home screen generally looks familiar, I can’t open a single game I have downloaded.

“So, the hours-long PlayStation Live outage appears to prevent you from playing a digitally downloaded title, even if you’re playing locally. I tried to open a few games, including Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Astro Bot, Star Wars Outlaws, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Interestingly, the only game I can get to open is Astro’s Playroom, but that came ready to go on the console after unboxing. For all other titles, though, I was presented with one of two errors, with the first being the most common:

Can’t use this content. Can’t connect to the serve to verify your license. Wait a while, and then try again.

If you enable [Console Sharing and Offline Play] on this PS5, you can use your content even when the server isn’t available. To enable this setting select [Settings] > [Users and Accounts] > [Other}. For details about console sharing and offline play, refer to the user’s guide.

Can’t use this content. Can’t connect to the server to verify your license. Wait a while, and then try again.

“I suppose I can play Astro’s Playroom for a bit, but it makes me wish I purchased a few of these titles on a disc. I assume that works and that I don’t need to check with a server to allow the game to start.

“Further, while I can browse the PlayStation Store, I – expectedly – cannot download an already owned item, a free item, or get to checkout to purchase a new title. The online status for my account shows as “unavailable” as well.”

One of the most annoying things about this outage is that it isn’t only impacting online and multiplayer games – with the problem being that digital copies of even single-player games need PSN access to verify the game’s license.

This is something that Jacob Krol, TechRadar’s Managing Editor, News, has directly experienced. I’ll let him explain…

However frustrated you may be, spare a thought for user Bubbleigh526 on Reddit – who reports that they “finally saved up enough money to buy a PS5 yesterday and when we got it home we couldn’t even log in.”

Now that’s really bad timing.

It’s understandable that PS5 (and PS4) gamers are upset – because many will have a PS Plus subscription, and it’s not a cheap service to subscribe to.

As you’ll see in our full guide to the PlayStation Plus Tiers, even the cheapest Essential tier costs $9.99 monthly / $24.99 quarterly / $79.99 yearly in the US, £6.99 monthly / £19.99 quarterly / £59.99 yearly in the UK and AU$11.95 monthly / AU$33.95 quarterly / AU$95.95 yearly in Australia.

The Extra tier, meanwhile, is $14.99 monthly / $39.99 quarterly / $134.99 yearly, or £10.99 monthly / £31.99 quarterly / £99.99 yearly in the UK, or AU$18 monthly / AU$54.95 quarterly / AU$169.95 yearly in Aus.

And finally, the Premium offering will set you back $17.99 monthly / $49.99 quarterly / $159.99 yearly in the US, and £13.49 monthly / £39.99 quarterly / £119.99 yearly in the UK (Australia has a slightly different set up for the top tier).

We have no idea whether Sony will refund anyone for the outage, but you can see why people who are paying more than $150 a year might be angry at not being able to access the service.

This is far from the first – or worst – PSN outage of course.

A quick flick through the TechRadar archives turns up a PSN outage in October 2024, a big problem in May 2022 and one in February and March 2021.

But the biggest by far occurred in April and May 2011, when a massive hack – or “an “external intrusion” – saw servers down for a whopping 23 days. Here’s one of our reports from the time, if you’re interested in a bit of tech history.

I have of course reached out to Sony for any info they can provide, and will share any news with you as soon as I have it.

Though I should also admit that as the proud owner of a Steam Deck OLED, the PSN outage will not be impacting me personally. Sorry.

As you might imagine, PlayStation gamers are not happy about the situation.

In fact, that’s an understatement; thousands have flocked to Reddit and X to share their frustration at the outage – and the lack of communication from Sony.

Sony has provided an update on X/Twitter – but not a particularly helpful one.

The main PlayStation account and North American support account both posted the same message, stating that “some users might be currently experiencing issues with PSN,” but there were no further details given beyond a link to PSN Service Status page, and there have been no messages since.

Open up any of those sections and you’ll see that the last update there was filed at midnight today – which I assume is midnight ET, so nearly 12 hours ago.

The fact that there’s been no change to the page since then suggests that this is a big problem – and one that may not be fixed for some time.

So what is Sony saying about it all? Not very much, unfortunately.

As you can see above, the official PSN Network Service Status page is a sea of red, with the rather understated message “Some services are experiencing issues” written above them.

The UK version of Downdetector tells a similar story – and indeed it appears to be a worldwide problem.

We first realized there were problems with PSN when Downdetector outage reports spiked at around 6pm ET / 11pm GMT yesterday.

The graph below shows the huge volume of reports on the US version of the site:

Hello and welcome to our PlayStation Network outage live blog. I wish I had good news to report but right now the service remains down.