Hold your horses

You’ll have ample opportunity to build a snowman, learn to juggle, and trim your toenails today, as Sony has announced that it's extending the PlayStation Network's scheduled maintenance for a few more hours. The period – which had been set to run from 16:00PM to 04:00AM GMT in Europe, and from 08:00AM to 20:00PM PT in North America – will now last until at least 18:30PM GMT in Europe, and until the early morning in North America.

Assuming you’ve signed in recently, you’ll still be able to play your games online during the extended maintenance window. Other aspects of the PlayStation Network such as the PlayStation Store and Account Management will be inaccessible, however.

Update: The scheduled maintenance is set to continue until 22:00PM GMT in Europe, according to the PlayStation Blog.

Update 2: According to a PlayStation Knowledge Centre update, the maintenance is set to continue until 21:00PM PT in North America.

Update 3: Seeing as this story has escalated quite a bit over the past few hours, we've posted an updated article through here.

[source twitter.com, via twitter.com]