Sony’s online gaming service, PlayStation Network (PSN), went down on Thursday. This made players worry that the company might stop supporting the PlayStation4 game device. Sony released the PS5, the latest version of its PlayStation system, in late 2020. It was an instant hit, and shops had trouble keeping enough supplies on hand to meet the high demand. But a lot of players still play on PS4, the older version of the system that came out in 2013.
Data from the service status website Down Detector showed that more than 1,000 people had trouble connecting to the PSN Thursday afternoon. This was by far the most common problem reported. Players also had trouble getting into their accounts and playing games because of the server failure, which led some to think that Sony had finally shut down the PS4. “Are you really shutting down the PS4 servers?” one person asked PlayStation’s help account on X, which used to be called Twitter. “I was saving up for a PS5, but I’ll get an Xbox instead.”
The PSN website shows that all services are up and running at the moment, and it’s still not clear what caused the server problems this afternoon. CBS MoneyWatch asked Sony for a response, but they didn’t answer right away.
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Are Sony’s PS4 services going to be shut down?
Sony hasn’t said anything public about PS4 services being shut down. In fact, the company told Axios in October of last year that it might still make games for the PS4 even though it plans to make games that will only work on the PS5.
Sony has also kept supporting systems that came out a long time ago, like the PS3, which came out in 2006. Sony had said before that it would shut down its PS3 digital shop in 2021, but the company changed its mind after fans complained. In 2023, both the PS3 systems and the store are still running.
What exactly is a server?
According to the tech help website Computer Hope, servers can be either computer programs or pieces of hardware that accept and answer to requests from other computers over a network. In the gaming world, a server is a hosting system that lets console players play and run shared computer games online.
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Why do businesses turn off servers?
To save money, companies may shut down systems for games that run on machines from earlier generations. Such shutdowns usually happen when the number of users drops after a new gadget comes out. Keeping computers up and running costs a lot of money, so taking them down can save a company money. According to research from headphonesaddict.com, PS4 still has a strong user base of about 92 million people.
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Source: CBS News
