Essentially turning your new consoles and games into expensive paper weights for the day...
Long gone are the days when you could just plug in your Sega Mega Drive or Super Nintendo, slap in a cartridge, and off you go, playing your new favourite game ever.
Nope, these days, your console of choice pretty much demands a constant internet connection, the latest system updates to be downloaded, and with more and more people buying digital downloads of games instead of purchasing the physical disc copies, that is even more need to have access to the online store.
Around Christmas, when people are getting new consoles and games, the added traffic to the likes of the PlayStation Network or Nintendo eStore can cause them to grind to a hault, but add in the fact that there was talk of a cyber attack set to hit them both on Christmas Day, that would send even more new gamers into a blind, uncertain rage at the world.
Which is pretty much exactly what happened yesterday, when both the PSN and the NeS were forced offline.
https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/945320946877059072
https://twitter.com/AskPlayStation/status/945349305581350912
While most people simply assumed that this was because there was a sudden mass influx of new customers on each of the servers - which, to be honest, can't have helped any - there has been rumour that both sites would be targeted again for hacks on the 25th of December, although neither company have confirmed that this was part of the reason as to why both their online stores were offline on the day.
The best advice we can give for this time next year is to PRE-load new games or update the consoles BEFORE Christmas Day, as you will then miss out on most of the hassle involved of having to wait for the console servers to get back up and running.
Which these poor gamers had to suffer through:
https://twitter.com/MrJimGeer/status/945316337550807042
https://twitter.com/Lazerchickenzzz/status/945376250238992385
https://twitter.com/DerpG4ming/status/945249548997464064
https://twitter.com/xghosthost/status/945312648857571328
https://twitter.com/aastronaute/status/945395338474545153
https://twitter.com/sparroet/status/945359587968016384
