The PlayStation Network will go offline for just over 11 hours from this Wednesday, March 9 at 4:05pm GMT for "scheduled maintenance", Sony has confirmed.
The twist is you will still be able to play online during that time ONLY if you log into PSN via your PS3 before the scheduled downtime begins.
During the downtime, which ends at on Thursday, March 10 at 3am GMT, you won't be able to use the PS Store via PS3 or PSP, log in to PlayStation Account Management or register a PSN account.
But Sony says: "If you wish to play online during the maintenance, please ensure you sign in to PSN before 16:05 on Wednesday 9 March 2011."
It adds: "During this maintenance, you can continue to collect in-game trophies and these will be updated on your profile once PlayStation Network is back up and running."
So far, this has only been announced on the EU PS Blog so it would seem the US PSN will go unaffected.