PSN down for 12 hours for maintenance, back Tuesday 2am

If you're having PSN problems, I feel bad for you son, but don't worry, it's only down for maintenance and it's set to come back online 2am Tuesday (tomorrow) morning.

According to the Sony PlayStation blog, the PlayStation Store for the PlayStation 3, PSP and PS Vita won't be available to you during the downtime, so if you want to go and play classic plank-sliding game Coolboarders, you'll have to wait until tomorrow to buy it. Also out of action are the account management and account registration sections -- bad news if you planned on signing up to the service tonight.

It also means that you won't be able to play online, unless you happen to already be signed in and remain so throughout the night -- if you are, you'll luckily still be able to earn all those achievements that mean so much to you. If you're not already online, you're going to have to wait until tomorrow before you challenge random 12-year-olds to gunfights in Call of Duty.

Thankfully, it's only down for maintenance, rather than due to a massive hack like the one that occurred last year, which saw the details of 70 million PSN customers get half-inched. And then later that same year with 93,000 accounts being hacked. Sony will probably be the first to admit 2011 wasn't a great year, hack-wise.

What the maintenance is actually for hasn't been made clear, but rest assured if it's anything particularly juicy, we'll bring you the full lowdown. It's more likely, however, that it's just a few server tweaks and hole-patching you'll probably never notice.

If you find yourself at a loose end this evening while it's down, perhaps simply try playing the same games offline, or maybe just have a lavender-scented bath and soak your troubles away. Better yet, draw me a picture of what you think the giant hive-mind of the PSN actually looks like and post it on our awesome Facebook page. The best ones might even win a much-coveted CNET UK badge.