PS5 network goes down just before weekend and as usual Sony is saying nothing

It turns out play has many limits (Sony) Fans are furious to see the PlayStation Network go down on Friday, which also coincides with an open beta for the new Marvel fighting game. Earlier today, it became clear that the PlayStation Network had gone down, making Sony’s online services on PlayStation 5 inaccessible for many. Normally in these situations it comes back shortly after but as of 4.15pm it’s still down and yet Sony, which already has a poor reputation for communication with customers, hasn’t issued any sort of statement on the matter. What’s strange is that for most of the day Sony’s website has been insisting that everything is operating normally, and it’s only in the last half hour that it’s acknowledged that all its online services are experiencing issues. We tested it ourselves and while we can still play games like normal, both the PlayStation Store and PlayStation Plus are unavailable, and we can’t even access our PlayStation Trophies. Online functionality for games doesn’t work either, which includes the Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls beta that began earlier this morning. Combined with people preparing to settle down for the weekend, the timing really couldn’t be worse. Expert, exclusive gaming analysis Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning. According to the Downdetector website, these network issues began as early as about 11:40am for some people. There were suspicions that the fault lies with Amazon Web Services, which provides online access for PlayStation, amongst others, and also saw outages earlier today. Amazon Web Services was responsible for a global outage last year, but it’s reportedly working fine now, and no other online services appear to be down either. Unsurprisingly, people are venting their frustrations online. ‘Nice start to my three-day holiday. I just wanted to play and enjoy those three days. Is it that hard, Sony?’ says Belanana on X. One Alexander Meyer claims the outage is preventing them from even playing offline in Gran Turismo 7 while andymacn48 says they’re unable to stream their games to the PlayStation Portal. Jay Khannon goes as far as to suggest this could prompt them to jump to Xbox, though it’s not as if that console hasn’t had its fair share of network issues. Today, Microsoft had to apologise for Halo: Campaign Evolved’s early access launch not working and offered a free cosmetic to make up for it. Me and my sons experiencing the same problem. What happens if and when they go all digital, they expect people to put up with this? Never been interested in Xbox before but now might be time to change— Jay Khannon (@JayKhannon) July 24, 2026 Plenty of people are quick to point out that this is a grim portend for Sony’s plans to go completely digital, since it will be no longer be releasing physical games after 2027. If the PlayStation 6 winds up having no support for physical games, that means any network outages could risk just bricking the console and making your entire library inaccessible until the situation’s resolved. ‘So you’re telling me PlayStation, when you go all digital and your servers go down, we won’t have any games to play cos it’s all digital,’ says Ghost_96969. ‘Their f***ing mental if they think they can push digital only like this,’ adds BerryHeleana. ‘Imagine paying $80 for a digital license just to be locked out of your own library because a server tripped,’ says Openminded187A. Sony has been purposely quiet since its physical games announcement. In fact, there was no activity on its social media accounts for almost a week and upon returning, every post or YouTube upload has persistently been bombarded with angry complaints with no signs of a let up. It has been claimed that Sony fully expected the backlash and has told employees to not comment on the matter, although the silence is clearly further harming the company’s reputation. This network outage happening not even a month later is not helping matters. We will update this story should Sony issue an official statement on the cause of the outage but, well… we’re off the weekend soon too! The Marvel Tōkon beta is meant to run all weekend but that won’t matter if PS5 owners can’t access it (Sony Interactive Entertainment) Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter. To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here. For more stories like this, check our Gaming page. Arrow MORE: Amazon Prime adds free streaming video games for no extra charge Arrow MORE: Zelda themed special edition Nintendo Switch 2 rumoured for Ocarina Of Time Arrow MORE: Xbox is testing ads on streaming video games you already own GameCentral Sign up for exclusive analysis, latest releases, and bonus community content.