During the conference today, the PlayStation Network will be down for maintenance from 9AM to 11AM Pacific Time. Here are the details, according to PlayStation’s support site:

The PlayStation®Network will be taken offline for maintenance on August 18, 2009 from 9:00 AM – 11:00 AM PST. We apologize for any inconvenience.

During this time you may:

• Not be able to access the PlayStation®Store
• Not be able to play online games
• See a maintenance page when attempting to access the PlayStation Network

Please click here to check the status of the PlayStation Network. Please note when you log into the PlayStation Network, a message indicating the PlayStation Network has been suspended may appear. This does not mean that your account has been suspended, it simply means the PlayStation Network has been taken offline. Please wait until the maintenance has been completed before attempting to connect to the PlayStation Network. Again we apologize for any inconvenience.

In my opinion, it’s probably so they can upload the entire press conference to PSN, as well as set it up for a major firmware update, and possibly even a new design for the store or something. Is this going to affect all areas? Not sure, but if you happen to not be able to sign in or anything, and get the error mentioned above, then that’s what is causing it. I believe Europe will most likely be affected though, due to the Video Store being announced and it most likely being available today (in fact, out here in North America, that’s exactly what happened for us when we got our video store).