Our long national nightmare of being able to play Portal 2 co-op on PlayStation 3 is nearly over.

Sony has issued a press release detailing a "phased restoration" of PlayStation Network on a region-by-region basis, starting with the Americas, Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Middle East. It's unknown if any functionality will be restored today. Sony expects to have PSN restored everywhere by month's end.

The "first phase" will include the following features, as reads the press release:

• Sign-in for PlayStation Network and Qriocity services, including the resetting of passwords
• Restoration of online game-play across PS3 and PSP
• Playback rental video content, if within rental period, of PlayStation Network Video Delivery Service on PS3, PSP and MediaGo
• Music Unlimited powered by Qriocity, for current subscribers, on PS3 and PC
• Access to 3rd party services such as Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and MLB.tv
• ‘Friends’ category on PS3, including Friends List, Chat Functionality, Trophy Comparison, etc
• PlayStation Home

As soon as there are more details on the roll-out, I'll let you know.