Microsoft is trying to solve an issue which has brought down the Xbox ecosystem, as the reasons to fear an all-digital future grow.
Sony’s decision to abandon PlayStation game discs after 2027 has rightly sparked concerns around an all-digital video game landscape, and recently we’ve seen several downsides play out in real-time.
For Team PlayStation, we’ve seen Sony pull purchased films from digital libraries without warning, while the PlayStation Network went down last Friday – stopping people from accessing the online services.
A similar incident has now struck Microsoft’s Xbox, which is preventing people from logging into Xbox profiles, seeing games on the store, and even launching games entirely.
On the Xbox Status page at the time of writing, it’s showing ‘major outages’ across Account & Profile, Store & Subscriptions, Games & Gaming, and Apps & Mobile.
Under the Games & Gaming section, it reads: ‘You may have problems playing your digital games right now.’ Infuritagingly, this problem extends to disc-based games too.
Expert, exclusive gaming analysis
Sign up to the GameCentral newsletter for a unique take on the week in gaming, alongside the latest reviews and more. Delivered to your inbox every Saturday morning.
According to the website, the outage was reported at around 4.10am on Thursday, July 27, with Microsoft identifying the issue at 3.50pm. It’s unclear when the issue will be resolved.
‘We are aware that some users are encountering errors when attempting to sign in, see your game library, or launch games,’ a post from the Xbox Support account reads on X. ‘Our engineers are actively working to mitigate the issue.’
A follow-up post, three hours later, reads: ‘Just checking in on the game library, sign-in, and game launch issue. We know this has been going on a while and appreciate your patience while our teams keep working on it.’
GameCentral tested our Xbox Series X and while we could boot up some games, others failed to load – with no apparent pattern to what does and doesn’t work.
Even if the issue is resolved soon, it’s another example of how access to digital games is at the mercy of console manufacturers and their online systems.
Although in this case not even physical discs would’ve solved the problem, as the video game world becomes locked into a future where access to the games you’ve paid for can be taken a way at ay time.
Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.
To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.
For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.