PlayStation Network down for extended maintenance

The 14 hour PlayStation Network downtime which was postponed last week is now in effect.

According to the US PS Blog, the scheduled downtime kicked off at noon PST on Sunday, and is expected to run until at least 2:00AM PST On March 5, putting the end time at 5:00AM EST, 10:00AM GMT and 9:00PM AEST.

No explanation has been given for the outage beyond a description of it as "significant".

Unusually, the downtime will also affect the PlayStation family of websites, will boot off those already signed into the PSN, and shut down all services, including those which normally continue functioning during maintenance windows.

The maintenance had been scheduled for one of Sony's usual Thursday slots but was inexplicably pushed back, possibly due to its conflict with peak gaming time - although Sunday afternoon and evening downtime will probably rile our US friends somewhat.