Update July 28, 4:26 PM ET: On July 27, 2026 at 6:48pm ET, Microsoft tweeted that it has finally fixed Xbox's live services: "Good news — the earlier Xbox issue should now be mitigated. The earlier Xbox issue should now be mitigated. You should once again be able to launch games, sign in, and complete purchases. Thanks for sticking with us through a long one. Let us know if anything still looks off."
This is further confirmed on the Xbox Status Page, which shows that the Account & Profile, Store & Subscriptions, Games & Gaming, and Apps & Mobile functions of Xbox Live are up and running. However, users are replying to Microsoft on X that they still can't log in to Xbox Live, though not as many as before, so it's clear that the worst is over.
Update July 27, 5:53 PM ET: Sounds like the worst is over, as Microsoft just tweeted, "We're making progress on recovery! Most players should be able to launch titles and complete purchases again. Some may still see occasional failures as we finish up."
The Xbox Status Page is still showing "major outage" for the existing categories of Account & profile, Store & subscriptions, Games & gaming, and Apps & mobile, but, at least according to the tweet above, things should be turning around for most users.
Update July 27, 8:36 PM ET: Xbox CTO Scott Van Vilet just posted a lengthy apology and explanation on everything that went wrong with Xbox Live today. Read it at the link there.
After last week's debacle of Xbox Live being down on the same day as Halo: Campaign Evolved suffered errors that prevented people from its early access launch, you'd think they would calm down at Xbox, right?
Well, you'd be wrong because Xbox Live has once again suffered an outage that's been preventing people from logging into their profiles, accessing their games, and launching them, as confirmed by Xbox's X profile this morning.
We are aware that some users are encountering errors when attempting to sign in, see your game library, or launch games. Our engineers are actively working to mitigate the issue. For updates, please follow along here or on https://t.co/Ehlmwc7gX0.July 27, 2026
According to Xbox Live's Status webpage, currently its Account & Profile, Store & Subscriptions, App & Mobile, and Games & Gaming functions are unavailable thanks to outages, but Xbox's engineers are currently working on fixing them, and they'll let players know once they're back up as soon as possible.
Faith in digital media has been heavily shaken in recent weeks, what with Sony discontinuing games and pulling 500 movies from people's accounts without refunds.
With these recent debacles at Xbox, it's adding more fuel to the hot debate about whether piracy is the only way to preserve and own games without being shackled to online servers prone to system failures or DDoS attacks that could permanently damage them.
A debate that has drawn the attention of not only high-profile game developers like Hideo Kojima but also politicians to boot, like France's presidential candidate, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, both of whom have a negative opinion of a digital-only future where nobody truly owns anything.
In the meantime, as this debate rages on, we'll keep an eye on Xbox Live and let you know when it turns back on so you can get back to playing games.
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