Sony Online Entertainment takes down its PC game web site

Sony’s nightmare with hackers expanded in a new direction today as the company’s PC online games division shut down its Station.com online gaming web site.

Already reeling from the hacker attack that shuttered its 77-million-strong PlayStation Network, this new problem means that millions of Sony’s PC gamers are also affected by a shutdown.

The temporary shutdown affects popular games from EverQuest to Free Realms. Sony said in a note on Station.com that its investigation into the intrusion into Sony’s systems has uncovered “an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately.”

The systems are evidently separate between the PSN and Station.com, but both are housed at Sony’s online operations in San Diego, Calif.

Here’s the full text of Sony’s note:

“We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily. In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately. We will provide an update later today (Monday).”

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.