Sony performed a routine scheduled maintenance of its PlayStation Network on Monday, April 16. The maintenance lasted about 13 hours, from 6 a.m. Pacific Time to 6 p.m. Pacific Time.

During this scheduled maintenance, users were not be able to play online via the PlayStation Network, nor access the PlayStation Store, PlayStation Home, and account management. PSN-enabled Web sites were also be unavailable during this time, including the official PlayStation blog. All services resumed Monday night, at 7 p.m. PDT/10 p.m. EDT.

"Our mission is to keep you better informed about everything that is going on in the wide world of the PlayStation Network, to make your voice heard within the company, and to ensure that you, the gamer, are at the heart of every development across PSN," wrote Matthew Harper, a member of Sony's newly established digital platforms community management team. "Together, we will help guide the future of this platform."

While 13 hours may seem like a very long time for passionate gamers, this blackout due to scheduled maintenance is not that unusual. Last year, Sony had a six-week outage after a hacker attack compromised thousands of accounts, so it's better to be safe than sorry. After all, 13 hours is a small price to pay for security. Sony announced it will post updates on its blog and the PlayStation Twitter account, which will continue to function normally.

So if you can't log in to the PlayStation Network, do not be alarmed. It has not been hacked (again), nor is there a problem from your service provider. It's just some scheduled maintenance to keep things running smooth so gamers everywhere can continue to enjoy PlayStation. Stay tuned on the Twitter feed for updates.

(reported by Alexandra Burlacu, edited by Surojit Chatterjee)