Tens of thousands of gamers were left unable to play digital games on Friday after a PlayStation Network outage that lasted for hours — prompting fresh criticism of Sony’s plans to phase out physical discs by January 2028.
According to Down Detector, which tracks outages, reports of problems with the service surged globally. Users said they could not launch games, apps or network features on their PlayStation consoles.
“Thousands of PlayStation gamers were unable to play digital games for hours, sparking criticism of Sony's all-digital future plans.”
“Can’t play digital games till you fix it. Yet I can put my disc in and play. The all digital future looks great,” one user wrote on X earlier on Friday.
The outage began around the same time as an alert from Amazon Web Services that some servers were facing issues — which was later resolved. Sony’s status page confirmed that by Friday evening all affected services were back up and running.
Sony announced earlier this month that new games would still be sold in shops, but would come with a digital code — effectively ending disc-based releases from 2028. The disruption has reignited debate about the reliability of an all-digital ecosystem.
The BBC has approached PlayStation for comment.