Xbox Live users worldwide are facing a significant disruption as the service experiences a major outage, preventing them from signing into their accounts and playing games. The issue has been ongoing for at least three hours, with users unable to access both cloud and offline games that require an Xbox account login.
The flood of user reports highlights the widespread impact of the outage, with many expressing frustration over the inability to use the gaming platform.
The Xbox Support team has acknowledged the problem, stating, “We are aware that some users have been disconnected from Xbox Live. We’re investigating.” According to the Xbox status page, there is an ongoing outage affecting account and profile services.
This disruption is not limited to just one type of device; it is impacting users on various platforms, including Xbox One consoles, Xbox on Windows, Android devices, Apple devices, and web services. The Xbox team further explains, “You may not be able to sign in to your Xbox profile, may be disconnected while signed in, or have other related problems.
Features that require sign-in like most games, apps, and social activity won’t be available.”
The issue was officially acknowledged by the Xbox team at 14:07 EDT, several hours after the initial user reports began to surface online. Downdetector, a site that tracks service outages, has received tens of thousands of reports since the outage started.
Affected gamers are reporting server issues and the inability to log into their accounts to play games. The frustration is palpable, as many users had planned gaming sessions disrupted by the outage.
This incident brings to mind a similar widespread outage that occurred in May 2022, which affected multiple services, including Games & gaming, Cloud gaming & remote play, and Store & subscriptions. Such outages highlight the dependency of modern gaming on online services and the significant impact when these services are disrupted.
As of the latest update on July 2, 21:50 EDT, the Xbox team has announced that all disrupted Xbox Live services are back online after more than seven hours of investigation and repair efforts. While the services have been restored, the outage has once again highlighted the vulnerabilities in the infrastructure that supports online gaming.