PSN is still largely down after a period of almost 20 hours, but it has been even worse than thought for some in the PlayStation community. Since this outage began this past evening, PS5 and PS4 users around the globe have been expressing their frustration online as they have been unable to access the PlayStation Store, the PlayStation App, PlayStation Plus, or play various games that require internet functions. While everyone across the board seems to be airing their annoyance with Sony, this prolonged downtime has been that much more frustrating to some.
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For those who own the digital-only version of the PS5 or the new PS5 Pro, PSN going down has prompted even more headaches. This is due to the fact that these consoles have to download their games directly from the PS Store. With the PS Store being down, this means that these PS5 users can only play the games that they may have already downloaded on their console. As a result, the vast majority of their PlayStation library has been locked out to these PlayStation users for the time being.
Conversely, the same cannot be said for those who own the standard edition of the PS5 which contains a disc drive. These PS5 users at least have the option to insert their games into the console and download them in a traditional fashion to play offline until PSN is back. While this obviously only works for PS5 and PS4 games that have single-player functions, it still shows the value that lies in purchasing physically in 2025.
Related: PlayStation Network Still Down, Here’s When It May Come Back
All in all, this PSN downtime has really down the faults that there are with an all-digital future for video games. While purchasing games only in a digital manner definitely is convenient in some ways, those who have remained tried and true with physical PS5 and PS4 titles are likely that much happier that they have decided to do so in the wake of today’s PSN outage. Either way, here’s hoping that PSN comes back online in a full capacity soon enough.
Have you been frustrated by this ongoing PSN outage? And if you own a digital-only PS5, are you that much more angered by the PlayStation Network going down? Be sure to let me know your own thoughts down in the comments section.
