New Delhi, March 22 -- Sony's PlayStation Network suffered a widespread outage on Saturday evening, leaving players across multiple continents locked out of games, apps, and online features at one of the busiest moments in the platform's recent calendar.

The trouble began at 4:59pm on 21 March, when Sony's official PlayStation Service Status page acknowledged that something was wrong. The message posted to users read: "You might have difficulty launching games, apps, or network features. We're working to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience."

The affected category was listed specifically as "Gaming & Social" - the backbone of online play on both PlayStation 5 and PlayStation 4.

Sony's status page has since...