— Ask PlayStation (@AskPlayStation) December 24, 2014 
 
 A hacker group called Lizard Squad claims to be behind the attacks, which follow weeks of threatening to take the systems offline.  Story highlights Some Xbox users finally able to log on to network 
 
 Incident and a hack of Sony Pictures don't appear to be related 
 
 Lizard Squad hacker group has claimed responsibility for prior attacks 
 
 One Twitter user bemoans issue, stuck with cranky teenager 
 
 (CNN) Sony's PlayStation and Microsoft's Xbox Live gaming networks experienced widespread problems on Christmas Day as a hacker group claimed responsibility for what it said was an attack. The distributed denial of service attack which overwhelmed the servers at Sony and Microsoft appears to have been on a very large scale, and came when traffic would have already been very high.
– Thousands of people who got new Xboxes or PlayStations for Christmas were left frustrated yesterday as both networks suffered major disruptions. The problems began Christmas Eve and persisted through the next day, with Microsoft and Sony telling users they were aware of the issues and were doing their best to get them fixed, the BBC reports. Some suspected the problems may have been linked to Sony's release of The Interview, but a hacking group calling itself the Lizard Squad has claimed responsibility, reports TechCrunch. The same group said it took down gaming networks in August following tweets denouncing the bombing of ISIS targets. The group, which also took responsibility for bringing Xbox and PlayStation networks down earlier this month, asked for retweets of its messages yesterday in return for ending the problem, CNN reports. The problems may have been made worse by the number of people with new devices or games trying to hook up to networks, or possibly even by Sony's decision to release The Interview on Xbox Video as well as other sources, the Guardian reports.