Update 9AM: Normality has been restored! At some point overnight, seemingly at around 5:30AM UK time, things got back to normal with Xbox Live and all of the services have nice green ticks next to them once more.
The original post follows:
Just in time for the weekend, and when a couple of small titles like Gears 5 and Monster Hunter: Iceborne are launching, Xbox Live has decided to throw a proper strop and stop everyone from signing in. This would be fine if all of your games worked perfectly happily without you being attached to Microsoft’s online system, but that is not the case, and gamers are obviously not going to be happy about it.
I, like many this weekend, was all set to dive into Gears 5 having downloaded it via Microsoft’s Gamepass subscription a few days ago. It’s on my hard drive, sitting there, waiting to be played, but since I can’t sign in it’s utterly useless. Even my beloved Xbox 360 games, that I categorically own, don’t work. I currently have an Xbox X shaped door stop under the telly rather than a console.
The Xbox Live status page currently says that the Xbox Live Core Services – so signing in, creating, managing or recovering an account and the search function – are limited, and it affects all of the Microsoft Xbox platforms including Xbox One, Xbox 360, Windows 10 and Xbox on other devices. The current party line is that “Our engineers and developers are actively continuing to work to resolve the issue causing some members to have problems signing in to Xbox Live. Stay tuned, and thanks for your patience.”
So, it’s a case of waiting to see whether or not you’re actually going to be able to play Gears 5, which we called “a brilliant experience which can be enjoyed alone or with friends in equal measure” in our positively glowing 9/10 review or any of the other fantastic games launching this week like Monster Hunter: Iceborne which also bagged a sterling 9/10 as well. If you’re lucky enough to own a PlayStation or Nintendo Switch it might just be time to give it some love while you’re waiting.
