There’s something odd happening with Sony’s Playstation Network in the past few days. As reported by The Verge, several people are reporting that their PSN accounts are being banned for seemingly no reason.

PlayStation accounts are being “permanently suspended” and no one knows why. Hundreds of PlayStation gamers report being locked out of their accounts and games on PS4 and PS5 without any clear reasoning https://t.co/yZ9dj54AP9

— Tom Warren (@tomwarren) December 5, 2023

This is very worrying for a number of reasons, the most obvious being that being banned from your PSN account means that you can’t access certain games and features from your console, particularly digital games. It really doesn’t help that so far Sony has not exactly been transparent as to why they have been mass banning users from their platform.

Without any notice, @PlayStation / @AskPlayStation permanently banned me from the #PlayStation Network. No one knows why! I don’t have a chargeback, I can’t appeal & no response to suspension status. CS says to create a new account & disconnected me.#sony #psn #gaming #ps5 pic.twitter.com/YdoeHM76Iv

— Michael Dhaliwal (@michaeldhaliwal) December 4, 2023

This wouldn’t be the first time that PSN has had wide scale problems, but this is probably the first time that said problems were caused by Sony themselves. As shown in the tweet above, they refuse to even explain themselves, instead keeping quiet and not giving out a simple explanation, and this isn’t an isolated incident, even a cursory scraping of social media provides dozens upon dozens of examples of this happening.

Here for any updates, I’ve had the same thing happen with almost the exact same response from @PlayStation pic.twitter.com/T89zJ74pRW

— RobB (@vball_guy) December 5, 2023

@Zirksee Do you know anyway to contact PlayStation about this I haven’t done anything and got perma banned pic.twitter.com/fcRIFzI9SU

— ShowtimeMade (@ShowtimeMade) December 5, 2023

@AskPlayStation @PlayStation Why are accounts getting randomly suspended/banned ??! https://t.co/v6Lly1IgaW

— 无极 JESTER (@ToLookWithin7) December 4, 2023

Suddenly & with no warning @PlayStation banned my account permanently. I have had my account for 5+ years since the PS4. Never play online with either voice or chat. All social settings set to “no one” and can’t reach PS customer support online or phone. Crazy. @AskPlayStation pic.twitter.com/92zaZgliPt

— Nicolas El Hani (@nicolaselhani) December 4, 2023

Without a breach of terms of service, and being unable to access digital games bought on your Playstation 4 or Playstation 5, these bannings can only be akin to literal theft. Without a clear violation of policy, Sony is essentially stealing games and features customers have bought and holding them hostage for no clear reason.

Sony needs to clarify the reason for this mass takedown of accounts soon, while the public perception of Sony as a company have been rather bad these past few years to say the least this latest stunt can cause mass legal action on behalf of the players, unjustly banning accounts and costing players upwards of hundreds or even thousands of dollars in stolen property and Sony would deserve to lose every cent they’ve taken from their customers.