Japanese entertainment giant Sony pulled PlayStation Network (PSN) service offline between 5PM and 9PM British Standard Time for maintenance.

Pulling the PSN offline affected core services such as account registration, account management and the PlayStation Store.

During the downtime, PSN members were not able to log into the network. However, those who were online before the start of the maintenance remained signed in.

It was not the first time when PSN went offline. Earlier this week on Monday, PSN went offline for around an hour. It was also offline for around six hours earlier in September for scheduled maintenance.

Last Wednesday, the gaming service was went down for a number of hours without any explanation.

Repetitive downtime annoys gamers. But, Sony chief executive Howard Stringer says that pulling the service offline is a necessary evil as it is necessary to make the service more secure and better than ever before.