Millions of gamers can't connect

We had hoped that we wouldn't have to write a second article on the ongoing PlayStation Network outage, but it's been 24 hours since our previous report, so we figured that we better drop some new knowledge on the situation. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot to tell; Sony's servers appear to be still under fire following heavy traffic, with the platform holder unable to offer a firm time frame for when service will resume.

Sadly, what we do now know is that this isn't your average outage. A group of cyber attackers have claimed responsibility for bringing down both Xbox Live and PSN this Christmas, by overloading servers in a DDoS attack. While you may see this described as a "hack", this is inaccurate; rather, what the group's doing is overloading the Japanese giant's network with false traffic. Imagine a hundred people trying to squeeze through a small door frame at once, and you should get the idea.

We were able to use the PlayStation 4 fully here in the UK earlier today, but it seems like the servers have tumbled yet again this afternoon. If you've still got your PlayStation 3, we can confirm that that's working fine our end, so this may be a good opportunity to clear your backlog. Sony insists that it has engineers working around the clock to restore functionality, so unfortunately, you're just going to have to twiddle your thumbs until then.

Update (11:30AM GMT): Sony's slowly starting to bring the PSN back online. More information through here.