Xbox Live outage locks gamers out again

A month after another extended outage impeded Xbox gamers from playing for hours — and with a number of smaller issues in between — Microsoft’s network is down once again. Right now, many people can’t sign in or do much other than maybe watch Netflix on their Xbox Ones, after hours of problems and more than an hour and a half after its support account said the team was aware of problems. As usual, the Xbox Live status page is the best place to look for updated information, and it shows the issue running since around 8 PM ET.

We’ve heard that gamers who bought Gears 5 Ultimate to jump in early have been able to play through the campaign by taking their boxes offline, so if you enjoy single player gaming you may be in luck. For everyone else hoping to take their NBA 2K20 MyPlayer online or get in some multiplayer action, maybe it’s time to read a book, or take a walk. Whatever it is that other people do might help, if you don’t have a PS4, PC or Switch to keep your attention. One thing’s for sure — a string of service outages isn’t the best way to convince people that cloud-streamed gaming is a good bet for the future.

Update: As of about 12:30 AM ET @XboxSupport reported sign-ins were restored, let us know if everything is working out for you now.