The PlayStation Network will go offline for just over 11 hours from this Wednesday, March 9 at 4:05pm GMT for "scheduled maintenance", Sony has confirmed.

The twist is you will still be able to play online during that time ONLY if you log into PSN via your PS3 before the scheduled downtime begins.

During the downtime, which ends at on Thursday, March 10 at 3am GMT, you won't be able to use the PS Store via PS3 or PSP, log in to PlayStation Account Management or register a PSN account.

But Sony says: "If you wish to play online during the maintenance, please ensure you sign in to PSN before 16:05 on Wednesday 9 March 2011."

It adds: "During this maintenance, you can continue to collect in-game trophies and these will be updated on your profile once PlayStation Network is back up and running."

So far, this has only been announced on the EU PS Blog so it would seem the US PSN will go unaffected.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com/29 ... afternoon/

FYI...

Nooooo. Complete gayness because I've been home since 1530. If I'd seen this first, I'd have gone online.

Sony you complete and utter w*nkers.

Does Xbox Live get 'maintenance' periods like this or this long?

To be fair getting cloud saves as a result is a fair swap IMO.

Jon

Yes but not usually this long and their management is much better. They're on a regular schedule (once per quarter I think) an they give you more notice. Plus with the Sony ones they do them worldwide simultaneously, and they tailor the time so it's early in the morning in the US and middle of the night in Japan (or vice versa, can't remember). So neither of them get inconvenienced much. However Europe, being right in the middle of those two places, gets it right in the middays every time. Quite why they feel they have to do them all at the same time when the PSN for the three regions is almost entirely segregated anyway, I really have no idea.

Jon