PlayStation’s online services, including the PlayStation Store and some game servers, have been down for at least the last eight hours. Gamers who are still very upset about Sony’s planned demise of game discs aren’t letting this outage slide.
On DownDetector, thousands of users reported early on Friday that PlayStation Network seemed to be experiencing issues. PlayStation’s status page still says the PlayStation Store is on the fritz. While Gizmodo was still able to access some PlayStation Network services, including the store, we spent nearly five minutes trying to join a match in Battlefield 6 before receiving an “Unknown Error” report, so your mileage may vary. Judging by the number of less-than-pleased posts you find on X, some users are evidently still out of luck.
It’s unclear when Sony’s online services will get back to normal. Sony has not exactly been helpful in that regard, with no official statements from Sony when players can expect a fix. Gizmodo reached out to Sony for comment, and we’ll update this piece if we hear back.
As for the cause for the outage, that’s still up in the air. Amazon resolved an AWS outage Friday morning, but that seemingly hasn’t fixed PlayStation Network. The outage is further exacerbated by Sony’s love affair with hardware DRM (digital rights management). Users require an internet connection in order to install a PS5 disc drive. PlayStation games purchased on the PlayStation Store also use DRM, and they require an internet connection to confirm a game’s license.
While some service disruptions are inevitable, this latest outage comes at a bad moment for Sony’s standing among gamers. The company said it was going to do away with any new game discs starting in 2028, effectively confirming that future consoles won’t have an optical drive to play current-gen or future games. Some gamers are pointing out that you can still go out and buy a game disc and plug it into their machine without the risk of Sony’s servers cutting off a download.
We have to be real here, Playstation is not ready for an all digital future
PSN is down and my disc drive can install games just fine 💽. They don't have the infrastructure to even support a only digital future
Honestly investors need to questions these things 📉 $SONY pic.twitter.com/vU76zfIWhL
— Pyo 5️⃣ (@mrpyo1) July 24, 2026
That logic isn’t exactly foolproof. You certainly can play a mountain of games right from a disc without needing to download, but there are a not-insignificant number of titles that require additional downloads to become fully playable. Other games require a day-one patch to fix any bugs that shipped with the physical copy.
Gizmodo readers may already know I have a strong opinion about the end to game discs. My broader point is that disc sales have long been on the decline and that we’re better off demanding Sony offer new ways to give gamers a better sense of ownership over digital titles. Sony’s lack of communication on anything—whether its future plans for game sales or this ongoing outage—isn’t giving gamers much hope.
