PlayStation Plus Subscribers Get 5 Days Of Service For The Outage

Sony has dealt with outages of its PlayStation Network before, but rarely on such a scale that sees the entirety of its online services become inaccessible to PSN accounts worldwide. If you somehow missed it, PSN went down for users around the globe on Friday, February 7 at around 3PM Pacific Standard Time, and it didn’t come back up until Saturday around 4PM Pacific Standard Time. So the service was down for just over a day for everyone. The outage affected PS5, PS4, PS Vita, PlayStation Portal, and even PlayStation PC ports where PSN was linked.

This posed a big issue for anyone trying to access any online content associated with their PSN account. Mainly online games. PlayStation Plus was also inaccessible, as was the PlayStation Store. There were even several single-player games that weren’t accessible because they have PSN checks. In short, it was a bad time for players. Sony was mostly quiet on the situation initially, only acknowledging the outage and offering an apology for the inconvenience.

Sony hasn’t explained what caused the global PlayStation Network outage, but it did finally offer PlayStation Plus subscribers a little something. Free service.

The PlayStation Network outage results in free PlayStation Plus service for members

It’s only five extra days, but something is better than nothing. Given the length of time of the outage, a service extension seems like pretty reasonable compensation. Although some were probably hoping for free games, this was unlikely.

Mostly because of how Sony handled its massive PSN outage back in 2011. At that time, PSN was down for around a month. And it wasn’t until about two weeks into the outage that Sony offered free games as compensation for the longstanding issue. Compare that to the outage this past weekend, which lasted a little more than a day, and it just doesn’t add up.

Either way, PS Plus subscribers will be getting an extension of their monthly service. When that happens is still unclear. Sony hasn’t yet announced when the 5 free days of service will be added to subscribers’ accounts. But chances are, there will be an email going out that explains it and when it’s applied. So keep an eye out for that.

Sony may not offer an explanation of what happened

Sony’s 5-day PS Plus extension is a nice gesture on behalf of subscribers, but for some, it’s not enough. As PC Mag points out, users on the PlayStation subreddit are asking Sony to explain what caused the outage. Subscribers are also interested in knowing what Sony is doing to prevent the issue from happening again in the future. Though, we’re not so sure Sony will offer any insight into that either.

In any case, PSN is back up and now working fully so your game time can resume.