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• PSN has just recovered from a 24-hour outage
• Sony says the downtime was caused by an “operational issue” with network services
• Compensation is 5 free days of service for PlayStation Plus members

Sony has informed us of the compensation that PlayStation owners – well, PlayStation Plus members – will receive due to the major outage that struck PSN this weekend, which is thankfully now in the rearview mirror.

The PlayStation Network outage ran for 24 hours in the end, blotting out Saturday online gaming sessions across the globe (or Friday night in some places).

Finally, we were given a reason for the service dropping out, namely an “operational issue” with network services as explained by the PlayStation North American support account on X.

Network services have fully recovered from an operational issue. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank the community for their patience. All PlayStation Plus members will automatically receive an additional 5 days of service.February 9, 2025

The post on the social media outlet also apologized and gave us details on the compensation that’s going to be provided: “All PlayStation Plus members will automatically receive an additional 5 days of service.”

Not so smooth operator

Predictably, there’s quite a bit of unhappiness around the response here. Just a cursory glance through the replies to the announcement from Sony support gives you a good flavor of the disgruntled gamers out there. The main theme is ‘just five days, what about a month?’ – or ‘why aren’t you giving us a free game instead?’

Okay, the latter is pushing it, but I must agree that five days feels like, how can I put this tactfully… a minimal gesture?

I think Sony could have done better than that in mitigating what was clearly a lot of bad feeling from the broad PlayStation community around this weekend-spoiling (for some) outage.

Heck, even non-PlayStation gamers are chipping in on X and saying this feels stingy from Sony.

It’s worth noting that far from everyone has received the five-day bonus yet, and it’s likely in the pipeline for many.

(Image credit: Nattawit Khomsanit / Shutterstock) Communication breakdown

The other frustrating element during this PSN outage was the lack of any communication as to what was going on from Sony.

Everything was down – all PlayStation services on the status dashboard, which was nothing but red lights – and yet not a peep was heard from official channels about the cause (or suspected fault), or an estimated delivery time for the fix to the PlayStation Network.

In some ways, that’ll doubtless have been about the fear of getting something else wrong – giving false hope of a ‘fix soon’ that then doesn’t appear, and which only makes PlayStation owners angrier – but still, it wasn’t a good situation.

The final verdict emerging as just an “operational issue” is not much of a reason, either, and that term feels very vague. Yes, apparently it was a large spanner in the works with the network infrastructure somewhere – but what kind of gremlin was crawling about in there? A little more of a clue wouldn’t hurt, in terms of: how did this happen, and how might Sony guard against this in the future?

In fairness, a fuller explanation could be coming shortly. And service downtime happens – it’s inevitable, of course. But I feel it’s clear enough that the response during the outage, and this final outcome and compensation, could – and should – have been better from Sony.

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• AMD’s MI400 APU lands in 2026, boosting AI, HPC, and compute efficiency
• New design features two AIDs with eight XCDs, doubling MI300’s density
• Multimedia IO Die offloads IO tasks and may integrate Xilinx FPGA tech

AMD’s Instinct MI400 APU is set to arrive in 2026 - designed for AI, machine learning, and HPC workloads, the MI400 will build on Team Red’s chiplet-based modular architecture and is expected to increase compute density, power efficiency, and scalability.

It may also play a role in future supercomputing projects, including a possible successor to El Capitan, but so far, AMD has only confirmed that the MI400 will use the CDNA "Next" architecture.

However,ut a patch updating the API header for MES (MicroEngine Scheduler) v12, spotted by Coelacanth’s Dream (and reported by VideoCardz), provides some insight into its chiplet configuration.

Multimedia IO Die

According to the patch, the MI400 will feature two Active Interposer Dies (AIDs), each containing four Accelerated Compute Dies (XCDs), for a total of eight XCDs. This doubles the XCD count per AID compared to the MI300. By integrating more compute dies into fewer interposers, AMD could reduce latency and improve efficiency while increasing data throughput, which is critical for AI and HPC workloads.

However, as Coelacanth’s Dream points out, “if the MI400 follows a similar CPU Complex Die (CCD) and AID partitioning as the MI300, where some AIDs are dedicated to CPUs rather than accelerators, then the maximum number of XCDs in some configurations could be limited to four, potentially reducing the XCD count compared to the MI300A APU.”

An intriguing addition to the MI400 is the Multimedia IO Die (MID), which separates the multimedia engine from the AIDs. The MID will likely manage memory controllers, media engines, and interface logic, allowing the compute dies to focus on processing tasks. The patches suggest support for up to two MIDs, probably assigning one per AID.

This new component could be AMD’s first integration of Versal/Xilinx FPGA technology into its accelerator lineup. AMD announced in 2022 that it planned to incorporate Xilinx’s FPGA-powered AI inference engine into its CPU portfolio. It could also be an Alveo series data center acceleration card.

The patches additionally reference a Register Remapping Table (RRMT), allowing firmware to direct register transactions to specific AIDs, XCDs, or MIDs.

AMD has not yet released any official renders or specifications for the MI400 series, but with the accelerator expected to launch in 2026, following the arrival of the Instinct MI350 series (built on the CDNA 4 architecture) later this year, more details will hopefully emerge soon.

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Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 9.

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