PSN Outage Gradually Recovering

Earlier today, a PlayStation Network downtime prevented gamers from accessing selected games for hours that required a PSN login, but the service is now gradually recovering and running. Reports of a PlayStation Network outage started at around 5:30 p.m. PDT / 8:30 p.m. EDT. This PSN issue impacted all PlayStation consoles currently supported by PSN—PS Vita, PS3, PS4, PS5—and any service that requires a PSN login.

When this issue occurred, Ask PlayStation's Twitter account reported that Sony was investigating and doing recovery operations. The PlayStation Store, PlayStation Video, Account management, and Gaming and Social all continued to display warnings on Sony's PSN service status page until a few hours ago, with the overall message reading that "some services are experiencing issues."

While the system was down, Sony admitted that the "technical error" that replaced the PlayStation 5 home screen's original artwork with intrusive advertisements caused the outage. Users have noted that PSN is gradually restoring its online presence, even though some speculated that PSN might be hacked again.

The PlayStation Network outage, however, has once again revealed that many games primarily focused on single-player gameplay do not offer real offline play. Problems of this nature may include difficulties logging into your PlayStation account, launching games, gaining access to material on PlayStation Video, or making purchases in the PlayStation Store. That leaves just about every possible PlayStation activity, and several users have voiced dissatisfaction on social media.