The PlayStation Network went down on Friday afternoon, leaving many PS5 users unable to access online services, the PlayStation Store, and PlayStation Plus. The outage also affected the open beta for Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls, which began earlier that morning.
As of 4:15pm, the network remained inaccessible for many, and Sony had not issued any statement. The company's website initially indicated all services were operating normally, only acknowledging issues in the last half hour.
Outage timing and suspected cause
According to Downdetector, the problems began as early as 11:40am. Some suspected Amazon Web Services, which provides online access for PlayStation and experienced an outage earlier in the day, but AWS was reportedly working fine and no other services appeared down.
Users expressed frustration on social media. Belanana said: "Nice start to my three-day holiday. I just wanted to play and enjoy those three days. Is it that hard, Sony?" Alexander Meyer reported being unable to play Gran Turismo 7 offline, while andymacn48 couldn't stream to the PlayStation Portal.
Digital future concerns
Many linked the outage to Sony's plan to stop releasing physical games after 2027. Ghost_96969 wrote: "So you're telling me PlayStation, when you go all digital and your servers go down, we won't have any games to play cos it's all digital." BerryHeleana added: "Their f***ing mental if they think they can push digital only like this."
Openminded187A commented: "Imagine paying $80 for a digital license just to be locked out of your own library because a server tripped."
Sony's silence
Sony has been quiet since the physical games announcement, with no social media activity for nearly a week. Posts and YouTube uploads have been met with angry complaints. It has been claimed that Sony expected the backlash and told employees not to comment, further harming its reputation.
