Update and edit: 9:32 PM ET: Xbox Live is back after a six-hour outage. Users should now be able to sign-in complete purchases and join chat sessions. You can see an edited version of our original article below.
Users should once again be able to sign-in, complete purchases and join chat sessions. Thank you for your patience and as always, we're listening. https://t.co/d8rSxOsgNk
— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) February 26, 2021
Microsoft’s Xbox Live service was down for six hours and the majority of Thursday afternoon and evening. Gamers originally reported issues playing digital titles, signing into Xbox Live, and a number of other problems.
According to Microsoft’s Xbox Status Page, as seen during the offtime, there were several major core outages impacting Xbox Live. The page noted issues with Account and Profile, Store and subscriptions, multiplayer, gaming, and cloud gaming. This page made it clear that problems first started happening around 3:15:00 PM EST, or 12:15 PM in PT, Seattle time.
Microsoft encouraged gamers to stay tuned to the Xbox Support Twitter for more updates. However, it is not clear what caused these issues. We do hope Microsoft will come out to explain, as the six-hour outage is one of the longest in the history of Xbox Live and in recent times.
