Since we were spending Christmas day with our loved ones, stuffing our faces with turkey and chocolate, and drinking until we fell asleep on the sofa in the evening, we’re a bit late with this news, but PSN and Xbox Live have been experiencing outages over Christmas, apparently due to “hacker” groups which we aren’t going to mention here.
Imagine spending Christmas day ruining it for many other people – we’ve seen reports of Disney Infinity and Skylanders not loading up due to needing a connection, day one patches not being able to be installed, and online multiplayer in games such as The Last of Us and Call of Duty not working.
Christmas is all about empathy, sharing, and a sense of community – something which these idiots have ruined for many. That’s if they have taken it down, and even if they have it’s a DDoS attack rather than a full-blown hack, so there’s no need to worry about your details.
For further updates, check the PSN status page – currently offline – and Xbox Live status page – currently limited in its services – as we’re going back to eating those turkey leftovers. We really hope you can get your gaming on soon.
Roynaldo
Fuckers. Poor kids at Xmas in tears because their consoles/games don’t work and for what? A chuckle by some poisoned DDOSers with black hearts thinking it’s funny.
hazelam
don’t forget “virgin”
poisoned virgin DDOSers
Mr.Gorha
Well no, it’s political and Sony were warned it was going to occur yet did nothing in terms of prevention.
Pixel_nme
Well Microsoft where warned a month ago and it also still went down,from what i’ve read countless times you can’t actually stop a ddos attack.
Lieutenant Fatman
Booo. Time to crack out the old board games instead. Monopoly anyone?
Kronik76
It’s very sad that some people have nothing better to do on Christmas day than spoil the fun of others. I sincerely hope that those hackers had a horrible, horrible day.
MidnightManiac
My personal experience is this this, I have moved to Australia and left all my family and friends back home in the UK, as a result PSN is more than just games to me, it’s a way for me to reach out and connect to love ones. Because of these ‘people’ I’ve had one of the most lonely and worst Christmas holidays ever. I am sure there are many people like me. PSN is more than just a service, it’s a way to be with people you care about and share experiences with, something I really needed this Christmas. I hope they are happy… I’m not.
MidnightManiac
On a better note, just wanted to say I love this site. You guys do a great job. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Geffdof23
Gutted. Hope you get to connect with loved ones soon.
MidnightManiac
Thanks mate. Me too. I guess I’ll try again in the morning… Maybe a bit of lbp with the nephews. :-) Have a good one. Hopefully they’ll let up.
Blair Inglis
A belated Merry Christmas from TSA, midnight. Hope things pick up for you when PSN gets back online.
pdannysan13
I hope you can get a bit of Christmas feeling by New Year. It can’t be easy living in a totally different time zone and everybody being new.
MidnightManiac
Thanks for the sentiments guys, and no, it’s not easy. As if contending with the Time zone isn’t hard enough, I’ve had to contend with this too. Spent last two days burning time playing LBP3 on my own. At least I’ve unlocked some goodies to share with the family tomorrow. These ‘people’ are looking for publicity but they don’t care about the trouble they cause for us real people. It’s the kids this Christmas that have really suffered, some of them will have had their first taste of PS goodness, but it’s been tarnished by this stuff. As I kinda said before, gaming brings people together, to have fun and socialise. PSN isn’t just a service, it’s a social hub and an outlet for us to share experiences, and what better time to do that than Christmas time. To me this whole incident is no better than mindless vandalism.
Carrot381
My lad and his mate did manage a fair few hours co-op vita minecraft yesterday pm/evening without issue.
Today it’s been rather unpredictable though.
It’s a right cuntish thing to do anytime let alone xmas day though, and i hope those responsible inadvertently eat a mouldy tangerine.
Lyts1985
Even for the “grown ups” among us, this is a pretty shitty thing to do over the Christmas break. For most of us, with families, kids, full time jobs etc, gaming time is rare enough as it is, and then to have it completely ruined by some childish c*** who didn’t get enough hugs as a pre-teen, during the time that you do at least have a few days off work, it’s incredibly frustrating!
The one time of year we’re all supposed to have a well earned break and we can’t even chill out how we want or indulge ourselves in one of our favourite past times, just for a couple of hours. Bastards. Selfish bastards!
Youles
Totally agree mate. I work pretty damn hard, and God knows my wife does. We’re due to go on holiday soon and as such my wife and I decided we’d not buy each other anything in a bid to save money (although I surprised her with a few gifts – she deserves them more than me), we thought we’d just spoil the kids rotten. Anyway, I thought the best gift for me (apart from the obvious family time), and in a partially selfless act, would just be the odd hour on the PS4 when the kids nap. But no, these c**ts took my one gift. I’d love to kick them right in the Johnson, hard.
Lyts1985
Ah mate, I feel for you, that sucks :-( but I know how you feel… Selfishly I look forward to time off work knowing I can stay up that bit later, chill out, and play a few games of something knowing I still get to spend time with my partner, my little boy, and my wider family over what I would in a normal working week. But no, sod that, some unloved kid wants some “lulz” on Christmas Day. Not to mention all the parents out there having to explain to their disappointed children why they can’t play with their new toy, etc. Wankers.
Then you have to feel sorry for those whose Christmas has been truly spoilt by their actions. The employees at Sony and Microsoft who had to ditch their plans because they have to go in to work knowing full well there’s pretty much nothing they can do about it… All that overtime and on-call pay wasted. And you just know some poor bastards out there are getting an absolute roasting (or worse) from their seniors for something they really couldn’t have prevented or easily stopped.
Absolute wankers
leeroye
Got my son a PS4 for Xmas and he has yet to be able to play it. I downloaded the digital games i own for him weeks ago, ready to play Xmas day, however without a PSN connection they seem to be locked out. Shame on sony, why are these games locked without a PSN connection, especially after all the “we wont require and always online Connection”. Well it appears you have got that feature in there somehow for digital games at least. Never needed a PSN connection for PS3 digital games.
Pixel_nme
Hi you could try going to settings then network and un ticking Connect to internet,that usually stops the game looking for some form of authentification/permission from the internet,hopefully then your son should be able to atleast play his new present hope it helps ;)
a inferior race
It needs to authenticate if someone else is playing the game on a different psnid
Pixel_nme
Ah yes AIR i miss read it :(
pdannysan13
Feel really bad for your kids. I hope it doesn’t ruin the entire X-mas experience for them.
Pixel_nme
Even though this is rather irritating for myself it’s the kids i feel sorry for,finally getting there hands on there new consoles only for a large portion of it to be sabotaged.
rSp8
Fucking bellends. I hope they enjoyed crying into there Tesco value turkey dinner for one on Christmas Day. It’s not like they’re even showing off how clever they are, a DDOS attavk doesn’t actually involve any “hacking skill”. I really do wonder what they hope to achieve except for the publicity, well done to TSA for not actually naming the group of sad pricks.