PlayStation Network going down this morning -- for maintenance

Sony says its PlayStation Network will be down today, but those who suffered through last year's security breach should know it's only maintenance this time around.

Sony senior manager for the PlayStation Digital Platforms, Matthew Harper, announced on his company's blog yesterday that the gaming and digital media network will be taken down at 6 a.m. PT today and will stay offline for about 13 hours, or until 7 p.m. PT. During that period, the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home, and online gaming will not be available.

Sony's timing on the outage is somewhat curious. Almost exactly one year ago, the company was forced to take its PlayStation Network offline after it was breached by hackers. During the weeks-long downtime, the company revealed that user data was stolen, including credit card numbers. When the PlayStation Network was restored, Sony made it clear that the service was far more secure.

Sony described today's scheduled maintenance as "routine" and plans to announce its conclusion via the PlayStation Twitter account.