The PlayStation Network went down across the U.S. on Tuesday evening, with users reporting issues in many areas, according to the Downdetector service which monitors service outages.
An outage map produced by Downdetector showed service was lost across the United States over the past 24 hours, with a particular concentration in the North-Eastern cities of New York, Boston and Washington D.C.
More widely outages were reported in cities across the nation, including Chicago, Detroit, Tampa, Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle.
Newsweek contacted PlayStation for comment on Wednesday via online media inquiry form outside of regular office hours.
Why It Matters
As of June 2025, Sony, the company behind PlayStation, said its PlayStation Network had 123 million monthly active users. Loss of PlayStation Network service, even if only briefly, is a blow to the company amid intense competition between video game providers.
What To Know
A network service status message from PlayStation noted that “some services are experiencing issues” with “gaming and social” services on platforms including “other, PS Vita, PS3, PS4, PS5, Web”.
You might have difficulty launching games, apps or network features. We’re working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience,” PlayStation’s network status says.
According to Downdetector, the number of people reporting PlayStation Network outages exploded from just 32 at 9:01 p.m. ET on Tuesday, only just ahead of the baseline of 19, to 930 at 9:31p.m. ET and then 11,855 at 10:01 p.m. ET.
This was the peak after which the figure fell back to 8,558 at 10:30 p.m. ET, then 520 at 11:30 p.m. ET and continued this decline until it reached just 93 at 2:16 a.m. ET on Thursday, only just above the baseline for this time of 11.
Earlier this year, Sony announced it would be increasing the price of its flagship PlayStation 5 consoles in a number of regions including Europe, the UK, and Australia, with both digital-only and disc-based consoles affected depending on the country.
Sony held its first big PlayStation State of Play update of 2025 in February, in a stream lasting a little over 40 minutes, during which a range of new titles and release dates were announced.
What People Are Saying
PlayStation users took to social media to express their frustration over the outage and share jokes and memes.
One X user, with the handle @MaryvanNguyen, shared screenshots showing them being unable to access the PlayStation Network adding: “@PlayStation what’s wrong with the network right now? None of my friends and I can play online games.”
Another X user, based in Oakland, California, posted: “Coming off work and PlayStation network being down should be worth extra compensation.”
A third X user appeared to see the funny size, sharing a brief video of people falling over each other as they go down an escalator with the caption: “Everyone rushing to Twitter to see if PlayStation Network is down.”
Another shared a GIF, or short stock video, of a man wearing headphones putting his head into his hands and wrote: “Just got Back Home Just to see that PlayStation Network Is down im jus trynna game bra.”
What Happens Next
As of 3:05 a.m. ET on Wednesday the issue appeared to be largely resolved with Downdetector reporting just 63 outages, against a baseline of seven.
At this time, the PlayStation Network website said: “All services are up and running.”
