PlayStation Network down for maintenance today

Sony is sending in its engineers to bang some hammers and tighten some bolts on the PlayStation Network, which means some services won’t work.

Maintenance on PSN starts today at 8:30 a.m. Pacific time. It will continue through 2 p.m. Gamers will not have access to many parts of the service during this period. The PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home, and account management will all come offline. If you’ve signed into PSN since March 6, however, you can still play games online (including multiplayer titles) and access apps like Netflix.

This will impact all Sony platforms that use the PlayStation Network: the PS4, PS3, Vita, and PSP.

This down period is part of Sony’s upkeep schedule for its digital-distribution and online service, and it does not signify any widespread problem in the system. The company usually tries to schedule these PSN outages for off-peak hours.

“We thank you for your patience and support and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause,” reads a post on Sony’s forum. “In order to access online gameplay and partner apps during this routine maintenance, we ask that you please sign into the network prior to [it starting on Monday morning].”

Sony did warn that some gamers might experience further outages once the maintenance ends as its engineering team tests its changes.