Sony has suspended its PlayStation Store in mainland China citing security reasons. The store went offline yesterday and a clear date for the resumption of services is not known so far.
Although Sony has not provided much details regarding the situation, this probably isn’t a security breach as the company is liable to mention it in that case. On its official Weibo handle, Sony has posted an official statement that roughly translates to “Suspension Notice: PlayStation China Store will be suspended from 7 a.m. on May 10 due to the Security Upgrade of PlayStation China Store, and we apologize for the inconvenience caused by the user.”
The move comes after reports of mainland China PlayStation gamers being able to switch the region to Hong Kong, thereby bypassing China’s license system that restricts players from accessing unlicensed games. Apparently, Sony could have become aware of the workaround and could be working on fixing it at this moment.
As reported by Technode, the Chinese Playstation Store had 124 games before it went offline whereas the Hong Kong store has a massive library of 4,633 titles. Moreover, the Hong Kong store uses mainland China’s official simplified Chinese which makes it convenient for enthusiasts to switch.
We could expect Sony to fix the alleged security issues and make the store live in the coming weeks since more downtime could take a hit on their business in the country. That said, if the security upgrade is being performed to reinforce the server lock, console gamers in China probably won’t be happy.
