PlayStation Network struggles to stay up following EU PS4 launch

Update: Sony has temporarily disabled the option to redeem vouchers through PlayStation Network in a bid to ensure a smoother service.

"To minimise the inconvenience we have suspended the 'redeem voucher' functionality whilst we investigate further. Unfortunately this means that money cards, product vouchers, PlayStation Plus vouchers, PS3-PS4 upgrade vouchers and any other vouchers for digital content are not redeemable at this stage," said Sony. "Other PSN features such as log-in, online multi-player gaming, PlayStation Plus trial, PS Store (excluding voucher redemption), trophies, messages, friends etc. are all available."

Original story: PlayStation Network in Europe has collapsed under the weight of users attempting to connect their new PlayStation 4 consoles to the service, following the launch of the machine in the region today.

The service is struggling to cope with the traffic generated by the amount of people returning home from a day at work/school armed with the new console. The same thing happened when the machine launched in the US earlier this month.

"We are aware some users are experiencing issues logging into PSN on PS4 due to the heavy traffic we are receiving, we're investigating," said Sony on the PlayStation Europe Twitter account.

"Thanks for your patience."

Sony attempted to lessen the potential outages yesterday by disabling the What's New and Content Information screens on PlayStation Network in Europe, but Twitter and the Sony forums are currently awash with tales of people unable to connect.

One of the main things people will be looking for is the initial update for the PlayStation 4, which enables many of the machine's services and features. Anyone looking to manually install the machine's day one update can do from Sony's site, provided they have some USB storage handy.

The 1.51 update weighs in at 308mb, so any stick made in the 21st century should suffice.