PlayStation Network will go down tonight for scheduled maintenance

Sony is going to bang some hammers on its online gaming service tonight, and that could cause some minor connectivity troubles.

PlayStation Network is getting scheduled maintenance tonight from 9:30 p.m. Pacific through 11:30 p.m. Pacific (12:30 a.m. Eastern through 2:30 a.m. Eastern), according to the company’s status website. This shouldn’t have a major effect on anyone who already has a PSN account. You should still have access to most games and applications during this time, but the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Video, and account-management features will not function throughout the maintenance period — but this won’t impact your digital games or apps like PlayStation Vue.

Sony uses these sessions to ensure PSN works properly, because it is one of the PlayStation consoles’ more crucial features. The service is where players can purchase digital games and films as well as a subscription to the premium PS Plus membership program. That generates a significant amount of revenue for Sony — especially considering the PlayStation 4 is the top-selling system in the $99.3 billion gaming industry.

The company does have one suggestion for those worried about disruptions this evening. If you have switched PS4 systems or travel between multiple units, you should set the device you plan to use tonight as your primary console.

Here’s how to do that:

• Boot up your PS4.
• Sign into your PSN profile.
• Go to Settings.
• Go to PlayStation Network/Account Management.
• Click the button to “Activate as your primary PS4.”

This will make it more likely that your online games will work during the outage.