UPDATE: After many hours of downtime, it looks like PSN is coming back now.

Sony’s PlayStation Network (PSN) is currently down worldwide and has been for some time. The issue has impacted all platforms currently using the PSN service, so don’t expect to be able to login or play games on PS3, PS4, or PS Vita if they require a connection.

Sony is currently aware of the problem and is investigating how to get the service back up and running. They have issued only one statement on the matter, saying “We’re aware that some users are having trouble accessing PSN. Thanks for your patience as we investigate.” You can follow Sony’s progress here as we will keep this updated, or check out the official PSN Status page for updates.

This is the first major outage for PSN in some time, with most recent issues occurring during planned maintenance windows. This was certainly not planned ahead of time though, as no warning was issued before everything went down. 2014 and early 2015 were bad times for both PSN and Xbox Live as the online service went down multiple times for various lengths.

However, Sony and Microsoft seemed to focus in on the problems, and shore up their security overall. This resulted in fewer outages, including during Christmastime, where the services usually go down simply due to the sheer amount of people jumping on. Some problems came up, but not nearly to the degree seen before.

- This article was updated on:January 4th, 2016