Microsoft Xbox Live and Sony PlayStation's online stores both suffered an outage on Christmas Day, and Lizard Squad claimed responsibility.
Microsoft has confirmed via a status post that Xbox One, Xbox 360 and Xbox on other devices were all having connection problems.
Users who tried to get into the Xbox page were welcomed by a message: "Are you having a rough time signing in to Xbox Live? We're working to get this figured out right away. We appreciate your patience, while the PlayStation Network posted: "We are aware that some users are experiencing difficulty logging into the PSN. We will update this article with any changes that occur in regards to this issue. Thank you for your patience."
But two hours after the notification was posted at 4:33 p.m. ET, users still couldn't access the site. As of 7:30 p.m., the PlayStation Network was still down, according to Reuters.
Both Microsoft and Sony declined to comment about the outage.
Meanwhile, the Lizard Group posted on Twitter claiming responsibility of the outage but did not explain why it hacked the online stores. It is also uncertain if the outage is caused by "The Interview" being available for download in the PlayStation store.
"I have the nation on strings," Lizard Squad tweeted.
The hackers threatened that they will not restore the services unless many people retweet their message.
Too bad for gamers who are supposed to set up their gaming consoles for the first time today as they would likely would have to wait for until tomorrow when the services are fully restored.
"He has spent most of the day in tears. He says it's been his worst Christmas ever," said Ros Bruce from Essex to BBC News. She gave her 10-year-old son an Xbox One as a Christmas gift and he was excited to play it.
"I think Xbox should compensate us all."
