Just weeks after PlayStation revealed that it will stop producing physical game discs for new releases beginning in January 2028, the PlayStation Network has been hit by a widespread outage. At the time of writing, PSN has been experiencing issues for more than four hours, with Sony’s status page reporting problems across every listed service category.
The outage is affecting Account Management, Gaming and Social, PlayStation Video, the PlayStation Store, and PlayStation Direct. Players have reported being unable to sign into their accounts, connect to online multiplayer, access the PlayStation Store, download games, view their friends lists, check trophies, and verify licenses for some digitally purchased games.
This is what the PlayStation Status page is currently showing as of 1PM EST.
The problems also affect PlayStation games released on PC that require users to sign into a PlayStation Network account. Of course, the outage could not have happened at a worse time. The Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls open beta began today, July 24, and runs for only 72 hours across PlayStation 5, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. Many players, especially those within the fighting game community, have been waiting to get their hands on the upcoming Arc System Works fighter.
What Happened?
The PlayStation Network outage was caused by an Amazon Web Services failure that occurred earlier today. PlayStation relies on AWS infrastructure to power portions of its online network, and the disruption knocked out several services that depend on Amazon’s cloud platform.
While AWS has been working to restore its affected services, PSN continues to experience widespread issues. Sony hasn’t provided an estimated time for when the PlayStation Network will be fully restored, and there is currently no word on whether the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls beta will be extended due to the outage. Or for that matter, give out credits for the service disruption. It’s not like people aren’t paying for this…. PlayStation Plus isn’t free.
While this is not entirely Sony’s fault, it does raise the question of whether forcing consumers toward a 100 percent digital future is really such a good idea. The same applies to requiring people who purchased PlayStation games on PC to sign into PSN just to access them.
I know this outage is unlikely to change PlayStation’s plans, but perhaps it should cause the company to pause and reconsider how it is approaching its digital future. It is not as though PlayStation Network outages only happen once in a blue moon, and each one highlights how dependent players have become on a service that can prevent them from accessing games and features they already paid for.
