PSN down: PlayStation network not working as PS4 unable to connect to internet

PSN has broken, leaving gamers unable to get online.

Vast numbers of players are unable to connect to the PlayStation Network, leaving their PS4s without the ability to sign in at all. Users instead see a message only indicating that "an error has occurred".

"We’re aware that some users are experiencing issues logging into PSN," the PlayStation support account wrote on Twitter. "Thank you for your patience as we investigate."

Sony gave no indication of what the problem might be or how quickly it would be fixed. While it referred to "some users", the issue appeared to be affecting a large proportion of all players trying to get online.

It linked out to the PlayStation Network server status page, which tracks problems across its various services. Every single one of them was down: not only the usual account management, gaming and social tools, but also other related services like PlayStation Now, PlayStation Video, the PlayStation Store and PlayStation Music.

The tweet was met with more than 1,000 replies, largely from players complaining that they had been left unable to get online and suggesting that things might be better on Xbox Live.

The problems appeared to be happening on PS3s as well as PS4s, according to gamers trying to log in.

Most of the issues were concentrated in Europe, according to the outage tracking website Downdetector. But that might simply be a result of the fact that it is evening in those timezones, and so gamers trying to get online are most likely to be based there.

Because modern PlayStations are built to largely work online, outages render them largely useless. If the sign-in service breaks, then so do most games and other things to do with the console itself.