In previous years, PlayStation has become the victim of several hacking attacks and obstructions toward their online servers.
At 5 p.m. CST Feb. 7, reports came in from PlayStation users around the globe that the PlayStation Network (PSN) was experiencing a temporary outage.
This would mean that all online functionality, including the ability to play online games or download them from the PlayStation Store, would be unavailable until 6 p.m. CST Feb. 8.
This came as a major shock and disappointment to many players who logged on to the online servers to play and update games or connect to the PlayStation Store over the weekend only to be met with an error screen.
Players rushed to social media reporting the issue countless times and checked throughout the evening and into the following day, on the PSN status page for the return of the service.
These gamers’ accounts also required access to PlayStation Plus (PS Plus). This is a subscription service that gives access to many online features, including the ability to play online for any non-free-to-play game.
Losing a day of service that the consumer pays for themselves would cause gamers to be rightfully annoyed with the service. This caused many to begrudgingly begin their weekends with neither the games they enjoy, nor the friends and community they shared them with.
This came as particularly egregious timing specifically for “Monster Hunter” fans as the online beta, a gameplay testing demo session given to the public, for the franchise’s upcoming entry, “Monster Hunter Wilds,” had lost an entire precious day of playtime.
Thankfully, the game’s developers responded quickly with recompensation and extended the game’s next scheduled session by one full day, allowing players to play the game’s beta between Feb. 13 and Feb. 17.
Another company saw this gaming catastrophe as an opportunity to show support.
Krispy Kreme, a national donut shop chain, promised gamers a free original glazed doughnut between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. Feb. 8 at any Krispy Kreme location. This was mentioned in a post on X, stating, “sweet rewards don’t need a server.”
The debacle finally ended at 6 p.m. CST Feb. 8, nearly 24 hours after the outage was first reported.
PlayStation still has not provided any additional context as to why the outage had occurred, claiming it to be “an operational issue.” in a post on their “AskPlayStation” account on X. PlayStation’s response was prompt once the outage had ended, stating that “All PlayStation Plus members will automatically receive an additional 5 days of service.”
This amount of compensation would be more than the allotted time spent during the server’s brief blackout. For those who did not already own PS Plus, owners were granted a free period to use PS Plus between Feb. 13 and 15.
This short online disruption left gamers frustrated, and the outage’s cause is still shrouded in mystery, but the reimbursement on PlayStation’s behalf is a good compensation for precious and missed game time.
