SOE suspends services after discovering 'an issue'

Uh-oh. While Sony Online Entertainment had assured its customers last week that, "to the best of our knowledge, no customer personal information got out to any unauthorized person or persons" during last month's breach into Sony's systems, the MMO division today suspended its games and services, including its websites and Facebook titles.

"We have had to take the SOE service down temporarily," the group said in a brief statement this morning. "In the course of our investigation into the intrusion into our systems we have discovered an issue that warrants enough concern for us to take the service down effective immediately."

SOE added that it would provide an update later today. In the meantime, the notification page suggests you download and play some (offline) casual games to distract you from that horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Update: SOE has announced that it has lost 12,700 customer credit card numbers as the result of an attack, and roughly 24.6 million accounts may have been breached. Check out our follow-up post for more information.