The PlayStation Network has been giving readers a bit of trouble today, so we dropped a line to Sony to get the down low on the down time, most of which should be behind us.
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!