Massive Xbox Live Outage Disrupts Thousands of Users Across Microsoft Services

Xbox Live, Microsoft‘s renowned multiplayer gaming and digital media network, encountered a significant outage on Tuesday, causing disruption for thousands of users across various Microsoft services. The issue, which began surfacing around 2:15 p.m. ET, quickly escalated with over 23,000 outage reports registered on monitoring platform Downdetector. The predominant problem reported by more than three-fourths of users was related to difficulties logging into their accounts.

Among the error messages displayed to affected Xbox Live users was a notification indicating that the service was undergoing ‘scheduled maintenance.’ Concurrently, other Microsoft-operated services such as Minecraft and the Microsoft Store also experienced a surge in user-reported errors on Downdetector.

An official acknowledgment of the ongoing disruptions came from Xbox Support via X, with a Tweet posted at 2:55 p.m. ET. The message stated, ‘We are aware that some users have been disconnected from Xbox Live. We’re investigating!’ Subsequently, an update on the Xbox status page confirmed a major outage affecting the ‘Account & profile’ service as of 2:07 p.m. ET. This interruption hindered users from signing into their Xbox profiles, facing disconnections while signed in, and encountering other related issues.

For seamless access to online gaming and various functionalities, Microsoft mandates users to have an Xbox Live account, which can be created at no cost. The outage not only impacted gaming experiences on Xbox consoles but also on Windows PCs and Xbox mobile apps, leading to a widespread inconvenience for users.

Frustrated by the technical glitches, numerous Xbox Live users took to social media platforms to express their discontent, highlighting the prolonged inability to access their accounts or launch games. The outage duration and resolution timeline remained uncertain as users awaited further updates from Microsoft on when the service would be fully restored.