PSN down: Gamers report problems with online gaming service after hackers promise Christmas Day cyberattack
Hacker groups promised to attack both the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live on Christmas Day
Your support helps us to tell the story
This election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.
The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.
Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.
PlayStation Network users are reporting that some features of the online gaming service have gone down, after hackers threatened to disable it with a cyberattack on Christmas Day.
The outages will disappoint gamers who received new consoles for Christmas.
Writing on Twitter, PlayStation said they were aware that some users were having problems accessing certain services, and asked for their patience while they investigated.
PlayStation mentioned users were having issues accessing their friends lists, but some gamers on Twitter said other features, such as signing in, playing online and downloading games, were not working for them - it's not yet clear whether these cases were just individual faults, or due to wider problems with the network itself.
At the same time, others said they had successfully managed to access the service and were experiencing no issues.
It's not yet known what has caused the problems, but some have blamed the hacker groups Phantom Squad and Lizard Squad, who promised to attack the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live over Christmas.
The same thing happened last year, when millions were left unable to play their new games online over the festive period due to hacker-led cyberattacks.
On Christmas morning, one Twitter user wrote: "Well, it's safe to say so many kids will be very disappointed today. Lizard Squad have taken down PSN again."
Another said: "Don't tell me PSN is down, that's the best day of the year to game!"
The hacker groups promised to perform a DDoS attack, overloading PlayStation's servers with traffic and bringing them down.
However, PlayStation Network's official status website says all services are currently up and running.
There aren't currently too many users reporting problems with Xbox Live, suggesting the network could have escaped the hackers - but problems could develop throughout the day.
This story will be updated as the outages and problems progress.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments