“This is an epic post”: Fans rejoice as Krispy Kreme announces free donuts to gamers as Playstation network goes down

The global blackout of the PSN happened on February 8, 2025, affecting thousands of consumers who were completely locked out from accessing their PSN accounts online, online multiplayer games, and virtual purchases.

Some fans rejoiced, exclaiming “This is an epic post” as Krispy Kreme announced free donuts to gamers as the PlayStation network went down while PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 users across the globe were seen in utter anger over its service.

Reports from the Economic Times, the Hindustan Times, and even CNN indicated it had been a morning affair that lasted for several hours till the evening. Sony has acknowledged the issue but could not give any immediate timeline as to when it will be rectified.

Several players have begun using their social media avenues to express their concerns. There have been speculations on possible cyberattacks.

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Effect on the gamers and online services

PSN stopped its operations for several key features, such as online multiplayer gameplay, downloading and purchasing digital versions of games, and cloud saves.

Players reported not being able to log in, and error messages popped up when they tried to access their digital libraries, according to reports from NDTV. Some users also complained about single-player games that require an online connection for authentication.

Its service status page officially confirmed the outage, saying engineers were investigating. However, not knowing when a solution would come made the gamers frustrated.

One user pointed out the irony of not being able to play a game they purchased legally because it was locked through DRM, restricting them from accessing it without authenticating online.

Some speculations have come out saying a possible cause could be cyberattacks, although the company has not given an explicit reason for the outage.

The other speculations say the outage may have been caused by overloading the server because of an increase in traffic or other kinds of maintenance, which might inadvertently cause the network to become unreachable.

In 2011, PlayStation Network had a massive hacking incident, wherein the users' data were stolen, causing it to remain shut for several days.

Refer to this article from Sportskeeda for more updates.

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Krispy Kreme promotion in regards to the outage

Amid all this frustration, Krispy Kreme decided to roll out free donuts to offer consolation to affected gamers

Krispy Kreme has become accustomed to creating marketing buzz for holidays and big games. It unveiled a limited-edition "Big Game Dozen" in the run-up to Super Bowl LIX and was offering a second dozen for less than a buck.

Last fall, Krispy Kreme joined forces with McDonald's to provide free Original Glazed donuts to customers making qualifying purchases through October 2024.

Check out fans' reaction about this promotion below:

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Gamers' reaction on social media

Social media did not take much time to turn the PlayStation Network outage into a trending topic. Thousands of users started posting their frustration on social media. While some users were making fun of the situation by creating memes to poke fun at the inability to play their favorite games, others were recommending Xbox over PS.

Some posts on these sites included dissatisfaction among the people regarding their single-player games where they have to go through a verification process of online availability before accessing it, while some claimed that PlayStation Plus subscriptions were wasted due to these downtimes. Have a look at some of the users' reactions on Instagram:

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Sony confirmed the outage but had no explanation nor disclosed a time frame for full-service restoration. According to the latest reports from Times of India and CNN, the engineers from Sony are addressing the problem, and updates will be released via the official channels of PlayStation.

While widespread outages are infuriating, the gaming industry experiences them often enough. Other leading platforms, such as Xbox Live and Steam, have faced similar disruption in the past. However, because the PlayStation Network is so fundamental to online gaming, the firm will have to act quickly to restore services and regain user trust.

Update: As of the writing of this article, the PlayStation Network has been restored and is back up.