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Microsoft’s Xbox Live service was down for some users this evening, according to a tweet from Xbox Support. The timing was unfortunate as more people than usual had likely turned to online gaming as they self-quarantined in response to the spread of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19. During the outage, Microsoft’s Xbox Live status page was endlessly cycling its loading screen across many devices and browsers, preventing clarity into the actual status of the service.
“We understand some users may be experiencing errors with sign in or matching making on Xbox Live,” the Xbox customer service Twitter account stated, “and are currently investigating. Please check back here for details.”
That message was tweeted at 5:10 PM ET, and no other message has followed at the time of publishing this story.
We understand some users may be experiencing errors with sign in or matching making on Xbox Live, and are currently investigating. Please check back here for details.
— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) March 15, 2020
At the time of initial, DownDetector.com showed outage reports abating from a peak of nearly 100,000 at 5 p.m. The outage came on a day when millions were choosing to stay inside, and many of them are playing video games online; Steam reported a new concurrent user record of greater than 20 million online this weekend.
Update March 15th, 7:55 P.M. ET: Xbox Support’s Twitter handle says service has been restored.
