PlayStation Plus membership will be automatically extended by 5 days following a major PlayStation Network outage

At around 9:00 a.m. on February 8, 2025, Japan time, an outage occurred on Sony's online service ' PlayStation Network ,' causing PlayStation 5 (PS5) users around the world to be unable to use various online services, including online multiplayer. The outage lasted for almost 24 hours before being resolved. As an apology, Sony announced that it would extend the service period for users who subscribe to the paid membership service ' PlayStation Plus ' by five days.

The PlayStation™Network outage has been completely resolved, but we deeply apologize for any inconvenience caused by the operational failure. The service period for all PlayStation🄬Plus subscribers will be automatically extended by 5 days. We sincerely thank you for your patience while we waited for the service to be restored.

— Ask PlayStation JP (@AskPS_JP) February 9, 2025

With the PlayStation Network down, all services that could only be used online, such as online play of various games, access to the PlayStation Store, game downloads, account management settings, and communication with friends, became inaccessible. The outage began at 9:00 a.m. on the 8th and continued for almost 24 hours, and at 8:49 a.m. the day after the outage, Sony reported that 'the outage has been resolved.'

[PlayStation™Network outage recovery notice]
This problem has now been resolved.
We apologize to our customers for the inconvenience caused. pic.twitter.com/IiZ9trglsj

— Ask PlayStation JP (@AskPS_JP) February 8, 2025

In Japan in particular, the outage lasted from Saturday morning until Sunday morning, with many gamers lamenting that it was 'a precious holiday,' and on X (formerly Twitter), words such as ' PSN outage ' were briefly trending.

In addition, the date of the second open beta test for Capcom's highly anticipated new game ' Monster Hunter Wilds ' was exactly the same as the date of the test, which was conducted prior to the release on February 28, 2025, and Monster Hunter fans expressed their disappointment. Capcom stated, 'In light of the fact that the test period has been significantly shortened, we are currently considering whether we can add about 24 hours of additional time after next weekend.'

Regarding the ongoing OBT2, we apologize for the inconvenience caused by a PSN outage that prevented you from participating in the test.
Given that the test period has been significantly shortened, we are currently considering whether we can add approximately 24 hours of additional testing time after next weekend.
We will report again once the details are decided. #MonsterHunWilds …

— [Official] Monster Hunter Wilds (@MH_Wilds) February 9, 2025

Sony, on the other hand, said, 'We deeply apologize for the inconvenience caused by the operational malfunction,' and announced that it would extend the service period for PlayStation Plus subscribers by five days. This provides some compensation to members who were unable to use the free play, online multiplayer for some games, cloud storage, and other features offered by PlayStation Plus.

In addition, the PlayStation Network also suffered several hour outages in March and September 2024. In the past, the service was suspended for about a month, citing the need to strengthen security due to the possibility that user personal information may have been leaked.

Sony to resume some services of 'PlayStation Network (PSN)' and 'Qriocity' in Asia, including Japan - GIGAZINE