Microsoft's Xbox Live has had a poor year so far, besieged by issues that has affected its functionality. Now it looks like these problems resurfaced once again momentarily Monday morning, with the firm issuing a service alert, informing users that matchmaking services on Xbox One were down.
For a little while in the morning, the Xbox Live service page stated there were problems with Social and Gaming services which could effect In-game matchmaking, cloud storage, finding friends, Game DVR, leaderboards, avatar editing, or pictures. In short, this meant that you would've been unable to play with people online.
"Issues with Matchmaking?" The announcement stated. "We're on it! Our team is engaged and hard at work trying to get everything back to normal. Thanks so much for your patience while we work. We'll update you again when we know more."
This only impacted Social and Gaming services, however. Everything else such as Xbox Live Core Services, such as logging in and managing an account, as well as Purchase and Content Usage were all spick and span.
As stated, the page claims everything is back to normal. But the outtage represents another mark on Xbox Live's troubled history this year. Before today, issues with the service popped up just a few days ago, on March 24, which like today crippled Social and Gaming services. Before that, problems were reported in January and then again in February which affected things like downloading stuff you've purchased, making purchases to begin with, and even adding currency to your wallet. In some more serious cases, the outtage prevented gamers from playing digital games, rendering varying percentages of people's library useless depending on their gaming preferences.
The issue with Xbox Live is that it isn't a free service. In order to play games online or chat with friends, players need to pay a subscription. So when outtages like these occur, it doesn't come as mere inconvenience to players who are left unable to access XBL, they flat out lose money.
In wake of these problems, Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb revealed that Microsoft would consider giving away compensation whenever future outtages like these occur.
"I've taken some of the more thoughtful comments and shared them with a few folks on the Xbox team to make them aware of this request," he said when asked about compensation for the outtages. "That's about all I've got right now - but when I am back in the office I am going to stop by and chat 1:1 with some folks about this as well."
