With the coronavirus situation worsening and increasing numbers of people opting to stay at home, online gaming is likely to experience a huge surge in popularity – and judging by Xbox Live’s problems yesterday, it’s already happening.
Around 8pm UK time last night users started to report problems accessing Xbox Live services, meaning they could no longer access the online features in their games, or in some cases were unable to sign in. According to reports aggregated by Downdetector, this peaked at about 9pm UK and affected players across the globe.
At this point, the Xbox Support account tweeted to confirm it was investigating the issues, but it wasn’t until 23:20 UK time that the account tweeted again to confirm the problems had been resolved.
Players should once again be able to sign in and access Xbox Live services normally! Thank you for your patience and as always, we’re listening. https://t.co/fD18Mjpx6W
— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) March 15, 2020
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Head of Xbox Phil Spencer explained that Xbox had seen an increase in usage “on almost everything”, commending the work of the IT teams in managing to keep the services running. He also added that it was “heartening to hear from so many people using gaming as a way to stay connected during these times”.