If you'd have asked us to evaluate the state of the PlayStation Network this time last week, we'd have told you that it's improved significantly. Seriously, the service barely went down in 2015, and it was rock solid over Christmas. But the Sony rollercoaster never runs out of corkscrews, and, just as everyone was returning to work yesterday, its servers shat the bed for almost 12 hours.
So, where does this leave us? Well, we still conclude that after navigating the entire holiday period without so much as a hitch, the PSN must be much sturdier these days. However, it's clear that the days of lengthy turbulence are sadly not behind us. Fortunately, the platform holder has pledged to come good on yesterday's issues, by pledging free PlayStation Plus extensions to its users.
Specific details have yet to be revealed, but the platform holder wrote on Twitter that it will be offering extensions to anyone with active PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now subscriptions, as well as those with video rentals. We suspect that these will include 24 hours of free additional service, which should make up for the downtime and the inconvenience.
Look, we understand that keeping servers online is really, really hard β and Push Square's very own web developer will be squirming reading this β but for a global company with millions upon millions of users, the simple matter is that 12 hour outages are honestly not good enough. We're glad that the manufacturer's reimbursing its users, but we shouldn't be writing this article in the first place.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 51
if this was XBL we would just lose the time.
Oh no....in all their stupidity, this will be interpreted by the consumers as "Hurr durr moar free games!". Mark my words when people start "demanding" their extra free games with the January PS Plus update.
@Neolit , Sony doesn't make people put online DRM in their games that's up to the publishers and developers
if Fallout 4 requires an online connection (i don't have it so i don't know) then that's Bethesdas fault
@Neolit Fallout 4 should have worked. Do you own a digital copy of it? Is your account the master account on your PS4?
While it shouldn't have been down, props to Sony making it a policy to extend subscriptions whenever PSN goes down. Before we lost these days, but now Sony's doing the right thing and giving them back.
Umm I really don't want to start anything- and I know I'm going off topic- but I noticed a lot of moderation of language on a previous thread about the outage, and now @get2sammyb mentions Sony having "shat the bed". Surely this would have been moderated if it was a comment- what are the rules here?
For the record, I don't have a problem with any of the language used
@Neolit I'm confused as I played Fallout 4 yesterday because I couldn't play online. All I can think is what @get2sammyb said as I couldn't use the PS4 in the bedroom for that reason, so had to annoy the wife all day with Fallout in the living room π
@Mergatro1d The rules are that I try just as hard to get around the swearing filter as everyone else.
Maybe it's because I didn't want to play online last night, but I really couldn't care less about this outage. 12 hours isn't so bad to be without PSN. It's not exactly every week, or even every month these days. Some countries still have daily rolling power cuts. I'm not excusing Sony, it's just that I really don't feel it matters, especially when they automatically extend your subscription so you arnt out of pocket. Meh! Do something else! I guess someone needs to hold them to account, though. I'm happy to let others carry that burden!
@kyleforrester87 It's certainly not end of the world drama stuff. It's frustrating if you had planned to play and can't, though.
I just played some autobot devastation instead, Bah weep gragnah weep nini bong!
It is unacceptable that in todays world, maintenance can't be performed in the background. I was more accepting of this during the PS3 era as the online functionality was free but now that I actually pay for this - the main and only reason I have PS+ - I find this unacceptable. I don't expect my Telephone/internet, gas, electric, Sky etc to be unavailable at any time let alone 12hrs for 'Maintenance'
I know XBL has had a few outages but compared to PSN, its been a lot less frequent and I can't recall a time that it hasn't been available for more than an hour or 2 at most.
I don't want to get into a debate over which is better and why etc but from my perspective, I think the PSN is what stops the PS4 being the ultimate 'games' console. I don't think its as 'stable', reliable or quick as XBL and affects a number of games I play and more importantly, games that Sony are associated with - Probably the biggest online games too - Destiny, CoD:BO3, SW:BF - let alone other functions like Netflix etc which I assume were also affected.
I personally would prefer an extension to my PS+ subscription - I am not talking about a week+ for this specific outage as that seems unfair for 12hrs but a 'day' isn't that unreasonable. I don't use PS Now or any rental services so extensions to these are no consolation.
@get2sammyb Haha great answer, you massive *****
Let's not be trying to copy Sammy please -Tasuki-
@get2sammyb Yeah I get that. As I mentioned I also get that people have to complain or Sony will take liberties in future. I'm just very glad not to be responsible (or worse to be compelled) to be the one doing the complaining!
Hmm, I was still online on MGSV...
This is nothing... People just like to complain.
Strange, mine never went down, I downloaded the free games, watched netflix, got in a round or two of Destiny and played some Fallout. I actually can't remember the last time the service was down, so I will def take a free day to make up for something I never lost in the first place, awesome!
So the people without PS plus,PS now and video rentals get nothing.I not complaining.
Have we become so entitled these days that we go into a major meltdown because a gaming network goes down for a few hours?
When he was my age my granddad had fought in a World War, had been temporarily blinded by an enemy shell, was left with impaired hearing but he still didn't moan about unimportant things like people do today.
It went down for a few hours - it is not the end of the world.
Mind your language - TheMightyPunram
@Neolit are you saying that fallout is ........UNPLAYABLE when psn is down???!!!???!!! but its not an online game!?!?!? im a bit concerned here.
This happens to so many companies in different ways. There are banks that have issues stopping people getting money out thats far more serious than not being able to play a game for a few hours. Just because Sony is a big company it does not mean that it does not sometimes have problems.
Amazon Prime works fine with or without the PSN network maybe netflix should take that route.
I only lost 2 hours game time if they extend by even a day thats a score! I'll take that
@Neolit @Gmork___ @FullbringIchigo I would suspect the digital version, as all games require your account to hold a license in order to play your game. That's how Sony has worked don't the psp digital games, and PSN on PS3. In fact all your digital games have a license. On the ps4 you can restore your licenses for offline use. It's in the settings>PSN area I believe. Disc based would be completely untouched.
@Alpha i thought the licence for Digital games automatically activated the first time you booted up the game?
@kyleforrester87 as @get2sammyb said, if you made plans it ruins them. Yesterday I had plans (made 2days prior) for a online gaming day, including fps, to racing, to action adventure, and we couldn't do what we had planned. He brought his PS3 over (again) for no reason basically :/ but we ended up playing some halo 2. Lol.
@Alpha the restore licences option is just is there in case they become corrupted leaving them unplayable and if psn is down this likely wouldn't work. The only thing I can guess is that he didn't set it as his primary console in which case you have to be signed in to psn to play digital games. I recently bought a second PS4 for the 1tb hard drive but still have the first one (will probably trade in soon) and it was effectively useless yesterday as I couldn't sign in
@Neolit
DRM? I can play all my games online or offline, but obviously not online games only. Oh forgot to add & it doesn't matter if the game is digital or disc, most of my games are on disc.
I played as normal yesterday it must of went down when I came off, people act if it's only Sony's network that goes down which is far from the truth.
@Neolit ah now i understand, so you was using your second PS4 and was thus unable to play the game
another reason to buy physical over digital
@Neolit yeah that is one good point for digital games, i even did similar things myself on the PS3 with games i got off PS+
I wasn't bothered last night I played Fallout but as someone pointed out earlier if this was SkyTV or your phoneline that was down for 12 hour's all hell would break loose (sorry couldn't resist) I see no difference with PSN, Sony have a responsibility just like BT or Sky. Like I said it didn't affect me much last night, this is just for argument's sake Sony kinda suck and their PR suck's more.
Watch the language please! - TheMightyPunram
@get2sammyb I thought Fallout 4 was end of the world drama by design?
Didn't notice as I wasn't about to play yesterday.
I do think many are far too quick to cry and ask for 'free stuff', after a few hours of downtime, people were writing on sony's announcement that they wanted free games, and their subscription prolonged.
Like you say, the service has been much better and almost always rock solid, so they've definitely stepped up their game on that part.
But garding yourself against hackers like lizzardsquad et al, is almost impossible.
Nintendo's server's go down on a regular basis for maintenance. Yeah it's free, but no one really complains. Even if we paid for it I'm sure no one would b**** and whine as much as these "Sony fans" this stuff can take time. Sometimes a whole day.
Yep, actually the way people reacted was COMPLETELY ridiculous. The same can be said when people get upset when Live goes down. "OMG I missed a few hours of gaming, the world is coming to an end!" What a bunch of entitled, selfish brats we have created. I worry for the future of this world when something as pathetic as this garners this much attention. Sad and pathetic.
I didn't realize you couldn't play destiny offline until yesterday lol I was gutted as I normally play on my own anyway. On the plus side however I did get uncharted 3 finished up lol. Is it worth me using the free ps now trial up if they're gonna give free extensions?
Didnt even notice as Splatoon is the only online game I play but I agree with Sammy. These outages should be way shorter.
@Neolit How is it Sony's fault that clearly some people are shady and can't play their games offline, because they want to be cute and try to gameshare wit their buddies? Hell it is one of the FIRST steps in setting up the system.
My games are/were perfectly functional since I don't game share and have my system set as my primary system....Fallout 4 isn't something that requires being online either, and it only takes 2 seconds to unplug a cable or disable internet connection in settings since some people were claiming it was messing with their system....
Sony doesn't owe anyone who can't do things correctly anything, there are literally ZERO valid excuses as to why some people couldn't play SP games. And its not the end of the world if you can't play online MP for a few hours.
@Alpha I get it, sucks. But same with anything isn't it? Might arrange to go camping then it rains. Life eh?! Selfishly glad there are people willing to complain about it though, so I don't have to! Lol
@SonyInfinity the service was back up at 11PM EST. Idk when you were playing(probably after that) but there is absolutely 100% no way that your online was up and everyone elses was not lol
I used Netflix, downloaded Rayman Legends for my son and watched YouTube and was in bed well before 11, sorry bud.
@TheMightyPunram Apologie's sir.
@BAMozzy
Watch it now, just because you pay your hard-earned $50 a year doesn't mean your 'entitled' to the service actually working.
@xMEADx No worries, just try not to use any offensive language in the future. It might seem a little nitpicky of us when we call words like that out, but if the small fish aren't fried then everybody will start using them. π
@Neolit I've spoken to Sony customer service twice on the phone to deal with an issue, and honestly they were pretty professional about it. The refund and the game issue (the two issues) were a little slow to fix, but otherwise I had no problem with them. Dunno how good they are overall. But I've never heard a complaint from my friends.
@john_c I wouldn't call it entitlement. If you pay for PS4 and PSN it should work, that simple.
Overall, I'm happy that they are compensating the userbase. The amount of outages they've had a had been a lot if you look at the bigger picture, I'm not concerned if it's because hackers or not, they need to come up with a solution to prevent this.
I actually had no problems...watched Netflix and Hulu with no problems, even checked out the store to download my next episodes of TV shows (through the PS3)...PS4 and PS3 worked fine for me, my wife and kids, so I didn't even know about an outage until it was listed on here.
Other than that, I wouldn't have cared about it much...just like it didn't bother me too much for the long outage during the PS3's life cycle. I try to get anything retail, especially since I have a horrible internet connection as it is (I live in the middle of nowhere and it varies in speed). If I get bored, I have a large collection on PS3 and PS4, as well as all of my other consoles to back up with (Hail to NES, Atari 2600, Genesis, Dreamcast, N64, Gamecube, PS2 and Turbo Grafx 16)
@Neolit
Are you that guy who lost his wife and job over Fallout 4?
@Neolit
Sorry, it's just that when I hear people rage and stress about not being able to play a game it makes me laugh.. And when you said Sony came between you and Fallout 4....well, it just reminded me of another news article I'd read recently.. Forgive me..
S'all good..
@Neolit
Yeah it's true, emotions are all lost in text unless you make it blatantly obvious, which, in some cases can make you sound like a fairy lol..
Anyway, yeah some idiot lost loafs cuz of F4 and apparently tried to sue Bethesda, or is going to sue, I forget..
And there was another even bigger idiot who actually smothered/killed his own 6yo child by sitting on him while playing a game cuz the kids wouldn't shut up or go away or something.. It's news like that that makes people hate when gamers go on too much..
I know we all ain't like that but damn it looks bad on everyone..
@Neolit
Haha yes you're probably right..
And it's all gonna get alot worse for those people when VR really kicks off, which it will..
@Tasuki I know I was pushing my luck
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