US PlayStation Network Down for Maintenance on Thursday

UPDATE: Sony apologizes for the inconvenience, as the maintenance time is not expected to resume before tomorrow morning. 

Following a series of changes, patches and revisions to the PlayStation Network, it's finally going down for a bit of needed maintenance this Thursday, January 19th.

The following services will be unavailable to access from 8am until 9pm PST.

• PlayStation Store on PS3, PSP, and Media Go.

• PlayStation Network Account Management.

• PlayStation Network Account Registration.

• PlayStation Home

• Music Unlimited & Video Unlimited services

And you won't be able to sign into manage your PSN account from US.PlayStation.com.

If you're signed on when maintenance starts, you can keep your session active but not access any of the above. You'll also be able to collect in-game trophies while playing; they'll just be updated to your profile when the service comes back up.

The maintenance is following a PlayStation Store patch along with the new web-based Sony Entertainment Network website quietly going up yesterday. Prior to this, the PlayStation Store got a massive redesign in late Fall, so it's no wonder they might need to take the service down for some upgrades and compatibility fixes on their side.

Just in case the maintenance is done more quickly than planned (or takes longer), you can keep up with the status by following the PlayStation Twitter feed.  

Source: U.S. PlayStation Blog