Xbox Hit by Major Outage Affecting Sign-In, Game Library, and Game Launch

Xbox is down for a chunk of players right now — Microsoft confirmed an ongoing outage on July 27 that's hitting account sign-in, the game library, and the ability to launch games. The company acknowledged the issue on social media just before 1pm UK time, saying teams were actively working on a fix.

Microsoft's tweet admitted the problem had already been going on for a while and thanked players for their patience. The Xbox support page lists the resolution as "pending" with no confirmed fix time. The timing is particularly rough because Halo: Campaign Evolved is set to launch properly on July 28, right after a three-day early access window for Premium Edition owners.

The outage lands less than a week after PlayStation Network went down in a similar fashion — a rough stretch for both platform holders. Sony's outage hit especially hard given the ongoing backlash to its decision to end physical disc production for new PlayStation games in 2028, with critics pointing to service outages as exactly why an all-digital future is a problem. Gamers are reportedly planning a week-long PlayStation boycott next month in protest. Microsoft hasn't made any equivalent disc announcement, but reports suggest the next-gen Xbox will ship without a disc drive — and the Xbox support page currently notes that disc-based games may also be affected by this outage.

No resolution timeline has been given. Microsoft says its teams are still working on it, and the support page status remains pending.