Sony explains massive PSN outage and details compensation – but many PlayStation gamers are still unhappy – TechRadar
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PSN downtime was due to ‘operational issue’ and Sony is giving 5 free days as compensation
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Sony has informed us of the compensation that PlayStation owners – well, PlayStation Plus members – will receive due to the major outage that struck PSN this weekend, which is thankfully now in the rearview mirror.The PlayStation Network outage ran for 24 hours in the end, blotting out Saturday online gaming sessions across the globe (or Friday night in some places).Finally, we were given a reason for the service dropping out, namely an “operational issue” with network services as explained by the PlayStation North American support account on X.Network services have fully recovered from an operational issue. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank the community for their patience. All PlayStation Plus members will automatically receive an additional 5 days of service.February 9, 2025The post on the social media outlet also apologized and gave us details on the compensation that’s going to be provided: “All PlayStation Plus members will automatically receive an additional 5 days of service.”Predictably, there’s quite a bit of unhappiness around the response here. Just a cursory glance through the replies to the announcement from Sony support gives you a good flavor of the disgruntled gamers out there. The main theme is ‘just five days, what about a month?’ – or ‘why aren’t you giving us a free game instead?’Okay, the latter is pushing it, but I must agree that five days feels like, how can I put this tactfully… a minimal gesture?I think Sony could have done better than that in mitigating what was clearly a lot of bad feeling from the broad PlayStation community around this weekend-spoiling (for some) outage.Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more.Heck, even non-PlayStation gamers are chipping in on X and saying this feels stingy from Sony.It’s worth noting that far from everyone has received the five-day bonus yet, and it’s likely in the pipeline for many.The other frustrating element during this PSN outage was the lack of any communication as to what was going on from Sony.Everything was down – all PlayStation services on the status dashboard, which was nothing but red lights – and yet not a peep was heard from official channels about the cause (or suspected fault), or an estimated delivery time for the fix to the PlayStation Network.In some ways, that’ll doubtless have been about the fear of getting something else wrong – giving false hope of a ‘fix soon’ that then doesn’t appear, and which only makes PlayStation owners angrier – but still, it wasn’t a good situation.The final verdict emerging as just an “operational issue” is not much of a reason, either, and that term feels very vague. Yes, apparently it was a large spanner in the works with the network infrastructure somewhere – but what kind of gremlin was crawling about in there? A little more of a clue wouldn’t hurt, in terms of: how did this happen, and how might Sony guard against this in the future?In fairness, a fuller explanation could be coming shortly. And service downtime happens – it’s inevitable, of course. But I feel it’s clear enough that the response during the outage, and this final outcome and compensation, could – and should – have been better from Sony.Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel – ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ – was published by Hachette UK in 2013).Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.PlayStation Network outage live updates – PSN is back and compensation announced The PS5 Pro has made me realize I hate choiceThe impressive Sonos Roam drops to a super-cheap $99 at Best Buy
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