Both North America and Europe seem to have been affected by the PlayStation Network outage, though only Europe received any sort of official acknowledgement of network issues via the official forums.

The PlayStation Network is currently undergoing maintenance, which should last until 19:25 tonight. You will not be able to sign into the PlayStation Network during this time. However, if you are already signed into the PSN, either on any of our sites or on your PlayStation 3, you should remain signed in until you choose to sign out.

So the European issues should be cleared up momentarily, if they aren't already. As for North America, the PlayStation Network should be up and functioning now with the exception of the PlayStation Store itself, which Sony informed us is currently undergoing maintenance and will return shortly.

The PlayStation Store is down momentarily for maintenance. The rest of PlayStation Network (PlayStation Home, Friends Lists, Life With PlayStation, trophies, online gaming, etc) are up and running.

North American PlayStation 3 owners can always check the official website to check on the status of PSN. As of a few minutes ago the Network Status indicator was flashing between red and green with every page refresh I would initiate, but it now seems to have settled on green, the preferred color of network users everywhere.

Thanks to everyone for sending in tips!

Microsoft flipped Xbox Live's on switch late last night, and while the snazzy new look of the Xbox.com website distracted many of us for a spell, various technical issues have been becoming more and more apparent as the day drags on. For starters, last week's Sega Vintage Collection 2 seems to have disappeared from the Xbox Live Marketplace altogether, and those games that are still available, including the three new releases, seem to be available for purchase but unavailable for download. I tried to download Magic: The Gathering myself, and was greeted by the screen you see here.

Another rampant issue seems to be the failure of pre-order codes for the Xbox 360 version of Ghostbusters. While owners of the PlayStation 3 version are reporting successful redemption, 360 owners aren't able to get their hands on their early-adapter bonus swag.

We've reached out to Microsoft for a status update on the issues, and are eagerly awaiting some sort of response. In the meantime, the Xbox.com support page has been updated with the following message:

Users may experience difficulties when attempting to use Marketplace and/or making purchases. We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the technical issues. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience.

At least we know they are aware of the problem. I'm just hoping they fix things soon, as I am starting to feel the shakes of pre-emptive Magic withdrawal.

Users will not be able to connect or log into Xbox LIVE. We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Patience, my friends. I'm sure the issues will clear up soon enough. In the meantime I urge my friends to stop IMing me to complain that they cannot play Call of Duty 4 online.

[Thanks Rodney!]

Update: Larry Hryb, director of Xbox Live, tells me that the engineers have figured out what's wrong and are working on a solution.

On Tuesday February 20th from 0200-0500 PT Xbox Live will be offline for maintenance. As a result, the 'My Xbox' section of Xbox.com will be unavailable, and the Xbox forums will be in read only mode (you will not be able to post.) The remainder of Xbox.com will be available for your browsing pleasure.

Xbox Live Maintenance (2/20) [Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

For the first hour or two that Xbox.com and Xbox Live are down, you'll get error messages—when you hit Xbox.com you'll see a Server Not Available message, and if you try to connect to Xbox Live you'll get the "can't connect" message. Don't freak. It's not your account, your computer, your browser, or your ISP. It's us. After a couple hours you will see a "We're down for maintenance" page on Xbox.com and a similar message on your Xbox console.

Rest assured, though, cool stuff will be added. I hope it's a method to automatically capture all the Live Camera pornography that comes through in Uno. Florian Eckhardt

Downtime for Xbox.com and Xbox Live Next Week [Team Xbox]