Gamers can still use the service if they are already logged

Feb 10, 2015 07:06 GMT  ·  By

Sony is announcing that it is planning to take the PlayStation Network offline for a scheduled maintenance period on Thursday, February 12, between 9:00 PM Pacific Time and 12:30 PM Pacific Time, in order to deliver a number of back-end improvements to the service which will make the user experience better in the long term.

The official announcement explains that “If you’ve signed in to the network before, you will be able to play games online and access partner apps such as Netflix during this maintenance period. The PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home and Account Management will not be available during this time, and users may receive a maintenance notification when attempting to access these services.”

For the PlayStation 4, gamers need to activate their home console as the Primary System on the PlayStation Network in order to use it during maintenance.

On the Vita, users need to sign into the network on the device before the downtime starts.

Sony needs to be commended for the fact that this time around it is offering reasons for its decision to take the PSN down for 3.5 hours during a moment when a lot of gamers are likely to want to use it to play multiplayer or to access content.

PlayStation Network is crucial for the future of the PlayStation 4

Sony is looking to upgrade the capabilities of the PSN in order to make it an integral part of the sales pitch for the PlayStation 4 home console.

In the coming months, the company will introduce an entirely new PlayStation Music service, which is created in partnership with Spotify and will offer access to a wider array of songs for gamers to stream.

At the same time, PlayStation Video is being upgraded.

Both services will use more network resources and Sony needs to make sure that the PSN is able to take the extra load.

A long period of unplanned downtime can be a big problem for the company.

Sony is also aiming to make sure that the PlayStation Network is protected from attacks, both those that only seek to take it down using Denial of Service and those that are more insidious and want to gain access to the personal details of users in order to then scam them or steal money or content.