Christmas traditions are what makes the day so enjoyable, but there’s one tradition that haunts gamers year in and year out — the online shops of various game consoles going down on Christmas day. Not only does the logjam of new customers grind the marketplaces to a halt, but hackers have been continuing their own tradition of attacking servers to spoil everyone’s new Christmas gifts. It’s a bummer, especially in this increasingly digital age in which games come as downloads. Now expensive hunks of plastic are sitting under the tree, waiting to be played.
Accordingly, gamers are freaking out. This is one of the biggest days of the year across Steam, Xbox, Nintendo and PlayStation and most people can’t play their new hardware, and those who are already veterans of this generation are unable to redeem codes for gift cards or games. Sony has commented on their outage, saying that not only is PSN hit, but you can’t redeem codes on the web either:
You may have some difficulty accessing features and products on the PlayStation™Store. Our engineers are working to resolve the issue as soon as possible, and we thank you for your patience.
Nintendo also acknowledged that downloads and card redemptions have gone down.
We apologize for any issues you may be experiencing with Nintendo eShop. We are working on it and hope to have this resolved soon.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 25, 2017
We're aware that some users are having issues redeeming vouchers on PSN. Thank you for your patience as we investigate. Please be sure to follow us for further news and updates.
— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) December 25, 2017
A few hacker groups have already taken credit for the outages, saying the plans for a DDoS attack have been overtly in place for weeks now. Most people aren’t aware of this, they just want to get in their marketplaces and enjoy the day.
Dude PSN is annoying already. Every time I try and do something I get an error. Error here error there just errors everywhere. Website and console. @PlayStation
— JR (@GunnersAlive) December 25, 2017
https://twitter.com/aastronaute/status/945395338474545153
https://twitter.com/DerpG4ming/status/945249548997464064
What gives? Is PSN down? @AskPlayStation pic.twitter.com/8YbRzOXSnu
— Jim Geer (@MrJimGeer) December 25, 2017
In 2014, a hacker group took down PlayStation Network for weeks, and a founding member of that group is currently looking at jail time. Now that we’re reminded of this, consider downloading your new system’s update and even any digital games ahead of time next year.