Thousands of PlayStation users unable to access games as outages confirmed

Reports of outages first emerged on the tracking website Downdetector in the early afternoon.

Thousands of users are experiencing issues accessing the PlayStation Network, as it confirmed all its services are down.

Schoolchildren hoping to kick off the summer holidays by playing games such as Astro Bot and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will have been disappointed when the gaming giant announced the disruption on Friday afternoon.

Reports of outages first emerged on the tracking website Downdetector in the early afternoon, with thousands reporting connectivity issues.

PlayStation, which is operated by Sony, confirmed users are likely to experience problems trying to sign in and manage their accounts, stream games and use the online store.

The network’s website said it was working to resolve issues “as soon as possible”, but did not give an estimate as to when services may be up and running again, or suggest why the outage may have occurred.

On the social media platform X, players complained of not being able to log in, load games or shutdown their consoles.

It comes after a pro-Iran hacking group claimed responsibility for an alleged cyber-attack against Microsoft 365 on Thursday, according to Site Intelligence Group, which tracks and analyses extremist movements.

The group – 313 Team – said it targeted the “main servers” of Microsoft 365 and caused outages on services such as SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive.

In a statement shared on its Telegram channel after the alleged attack, 313 Team said it continues to target western systems that are “actively used to serve the enemy”, adding it has the right to avenge the death of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The former supreme leader of Iran was killed in US-backed Israeli air strike in February.