PlayStation gamers fume worldwide over massive weekend outage

PlayStation users around the world are up in arms over the gaming console’s widespread network outage, which has now been in effect for almost 24 hours.

The issues began at around 7 p.m. ET Thursday, according to tracking website Down Detector. Since then, there have been reports of constant issues around the world.

“We are aware some users might be currently experiencing issues with PSN,” PlayStation tweeted early on Friday. It directed players to the official PSN “service status” page, which states “some services are experiencing issues” with few further details.

That tracking website also shows issues with games and services that rely on PSN, such as Call of Duty and Fortnite. But those games do appear to be working as usual on other platforms, such as Xbox, suggesting that the issue is only with PlayStation specifically.

On X, gamers have vented their frustrations at being unable to play their favorite games.

“Woke up and PlayStation network still down. Weekend is ruined,” one user wrote next to a video of someone shooting their TV screen with a gun.

“Sony #PlayStation is straight up disrespectful with the way they communicate (more like don't communicate) with their users,” another raged.

A third added: “PlayStation fumbling the bag hard right now. 15 hours with absolutely no update. Idc that the servers are down but to not provide any sort of update after this long to millions of paying customers is not good business.

Others took a more humorous approach. “PlayStation network down, time to get to know my wife of 5 years,” one person joked.

“Me rolling up to Sony Headquarters to fix the PlayStation Network myself,” wrote another alongside a viral video of a man crashing his car into a showroom.

Brands, too, took the opportunity to get involved. Krispy Kreme offered a free Original Glazed Donut to those affected by the outage at all US locations.

The official account for the video game store GameStop tweeted: “Bet y’all want physical copies now”

PlayStation Network has been hit by a number of technical issues in the past. Perhaps the most notable came in 2011, when the company was hit by a hack that not only took the service offline but compromised the personal details of users. That attack led PlayStation to take its systems offline, and consoles were not able to log on for 23 days.

There is nothing yet to indicate that Sony or PlayStation has been hit by any kind of cyber attack this time.