Online services are set for scheduled maintenance later in the week, with the current cause of the problem not confirmed by Sony through their PlayStation Twitter support account as of yet.
A message on the official PSN status page does log a current problem, reading: "Some latency may be experienced due to high volume."
A 'Cannot connect to the server (NW-31201-7)' error message appears when trying to access the Store.
The Express can confirmed however that access to the PS Store and other online Apps and features are currently unavailable.
ORIGINAL: The downtime is for scheduled maintenance and will leave users on the PS4 and PS3 unable to access a range of online services.
The PS Store, PSN account management or registration and entertainment services will down, while online gameplay will be available
"We wanted to take a moment to inform you of a network maintenance, currently scheduled for Thursday the 15th, from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM Pacific Time (12:00 PM to 4:00 PM Eastern Time).
"We expect this maintenance to last approximately 4 hours. During this time we will deploy a series of back-end improvements to the network.