Playstation Network experiences outages over Black Friday

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Both Microsoft and Sony are offering sizeable discounts this Black Friday, with Xbox One and Playstation 4 bundles included in various sales worldwide. These price cuts provide an opportunity for gamers to transition to the current generation of consoles at relatively low cost, bypassing the average retail value. Xbox One and Playstation 4 stock levels across a majority of large retailers have significantly depleted, and as a result, large numbers of gamers are attempting to set up their newly-purchased devices. It now appears that Sony's Playstation Network is experiencing outages across all devices and regions due to this heavy traffic.

After users began to report complications when attempting to access Playstation Network, Sony acknowledged that their online service was struggling to handle the demand, with some core services becoming inaccessible. When the service first began to see outages, Sony's support team acknowledged the issue, and confirmed that engineers were working on a fix.

We are aware that some users are having connectivity issues with PSN this morning. Thanks for your patience as we investigate.

— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) November 27, 2015
Users are now beginning to report stable access to most services, which suggests that the service is coming closer to its normal functionality once again.

Microsoft's Xbox Live is yet to experience any documented downtime, however is still a possibility as the evening approaches in the United States. Events like these vigorously test the infrastructure of online services, and their capabilities when under high-demand. Frequent outages for Xbox Live and the Playstation Network have occurred in recent years, often leaving core online features inaccessible for a short period of time. This is sometimes emphasized during the holidays and thanksgiving, where new consoles attempt to connect to online services simultaneously. Last year this was paired with DDoS attacks on the Playstation Network, resulting in outages across the holiday period.

Source: Sony via Videogamer
 

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Lizard Squad claims reponsibility for PlayStation Network outage

Just a few hours ago, the PlayStation Network has experienced a mass outage, which was allegedly caused by high traffic from new activations from consoles bought during Black Friday. However, in a recent turn of events, Lizard Squad, a popular hacker group, has claimed responsibility over the said issue.

Just a few hours before the PlayStation team on Twitter acknowledged the problem, Lizard Squad founder "¢hippy," who goes under the username @chippyshell on Twitter, sent a tweet which seemed to be warning about a big event happening soon.

put on ur ****ing water boots itz bouta rain packets kid

— ¢hippy (@chippyshell) November 27, 2015
Soon after, "¢hippy" sent out another tweet, finally announcing that the group has successfully taken down the PlayStation Network. The tweet was retweeted by Lizard Squad's Twitter account, under the username @LizardLands.

PSN #OFFLINE #CHIPPY #LIZARDSQUAD

— ¢hippy (@chippyshell) November 27, 2015
The Lizard Squad is repeatedly discovered as the culprit behind attacks on the PlayStation Network, as well as the Xbox Live service. It was also responsible for a number of other attacks on other websites, like Google Vietnam and Malaysia Airlines.

As of the moment, according to the PlayStation Network website, the service is now back to normal, and all services are already up and running. However, in the event that any of you are still experiencing hiccups in accessing the service, be sure to let us know in the comments below.

Source: ¢hippy (@chippyshell on Twitter) (1), (2)
 

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