Sony on Tuesday announced that the PlayStation Network will undergo regular maintenance on Thursday, January 15 for a period of around four hours. The maintenance is scheduled to take place that day from 9 AM to 1 PM PDT (12 Noon to 4 PM EDT/ 5 PM to 9 PM UK).

"During this time, we will deploy a series of back-end improvements to the network," Sony said in a post on its support website today. This appears to be nothing more than standard, regular maintenance, as Sony has used the same exact wording to describe previous service upkeep.

Many gamers may not even know maintenance is underway, as anyone who has signed into PSN before October 8 will be able to play games online and access entertainment apps such as Netflix during the maintenance period normally.

However, the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home (which is going away for good soon), and Account Management will not be available during the period.

"We thank you for your patience and support and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause," Sony said.

This is the first regularly scheduled PSN maintenance period following the massive Christmas Day DDoS attack that brought the service down for days, causing headaches for millions.