Skip to main content

Microsoft fixes problem that rendered Xbox One systems useless

Xbox One X review controller system
Les Shu/Digital Trends

Microsoft said it has fixed a problem with Xbox Live that had rendered many users’ Xbox One systems unusable.

The official Xbox Support Twitter account posted the message on Wednesday, January 30, several hours after the issue was discovered, saying it had resolved all problems related to starting consoles, signing in, and title updates.

The issues surrounding Xbox One console startup, sign-in, title update errors, and our status page have now been resolved. Thank you for sticking with us while our teams addressed these issues and we appreciate the reports. As always, we're here and we're listening.

— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) January 30, 2019

Players turning on their systems on Wednesday found that they were unable to even play offline games, such as the new Kingdom Hearts III. Players had also reported completely black screens when turning on their systems, with some completing factory resets before checking online to see if others were experiencing issues. The issue, however, was related to Microsoft’s servers and had nothing to do with the consoles themselves.

Microsoft posted that it had identified the problem a few hours after players began reporting issues. In the United States, many children (and some adults) were home because of a deep freeze throughout the Midwest and were looking forward to spending some time with their games.

Hopefully Microsoft doesn’t run into similar problems when February 1 rolls around as Xbox Live’s Games With Gold program has some fantastic titles to give away for free to subscribers. They include the NES-style action game Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon and Super Bomberman R on Xbox One, as well as Assassin’s Creed Rogue for Xbox 360 and Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy for the original Xbox. As always, all of the games are fully playable on Xbox One, with the latter two also playable on Xbox 360, if yours happens to still be out.

In general, Xbox Live is relatively stable, but this isn’t the first time disruptions have stopped players from being able to play offline games. In the past, issues have kept digital games from being opened, even though are fully paid for and already downloaded on the system. This isn’t supposed to occur since your “home” Xbox is designed to play your library of games even if the internet happens to go out. In an age of reliance on online services, however, it does spell some concern for game ownership in the future.

Editors' Recommendations

Gabe Gurwin
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Gabe Gurwin has been playing games since 1997, beginning with the N64 and the Super Nintendo. He began his journalism career…
Closed Xbox studios pitched sequels to Hi-Fi Rush, Dishonored
Key art for Dishonored

Microsoft shocked its fans earlier this week with the closure of Tango Gameworks, Arkane Austin, and Mighty Dog Games. Now, we've learned more about what these studios were working on.

A new report from Bloomberg delved into the fallout of these closures by Microsoft. Its anonymous sources claimed that "Tango was in the process of pitching a sequel" to Hi-Fi Rush, the critically acclaimed rhythm action game that launched last year. That certainly comes as a disappointment, as what could've potentially become a new hallmark franchise for Microsoft and Bethesda was kneecapped before it could truly take off.

Read more
All upcoming Xbox Series X games: 2024 and beyond
Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2

The Xbox Series X and Series S have now been out for three years, bringing better resolution, higher frame rates, and ray tracing to gamers around the world. And the upcoming Xbox Series X games on this list promise to continue to show off all those bells and whistles in fun, new experiences.

If you're eager to find out what Microsoft has in store for the years ahead, we've rounded up every game confirmed so far, including new offerings, franchise installments, and ports of existing titles. We're looking beyond the first-party projects here to encompass all the great games coming to this powerful piece of gaming hardware. Maybe some of them will end up being among the best games on Xbox Series X.
Upcoming Xbox Series X games 2024
The games listed below either have 100% confirmed release dates or solid release windows that we expect them to hit in 2024. Any games with more ambiguous release windows will be listed below the confirmed releases.

Read more
One of the best Tomb Raider games is coming to Xbox Game Pass
Lara Croft runs from a crashing plane in Tomb Raider.

Microsoft unveiled the batch of games coming to Xbox Game Pass throughout the first half of May. It's a smaller group of only four games, but all of them are neat additions to Microsoft's subscription service. Here's the full roster of games coming to Xbox Game Pass between May 2 and May 14.

Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition -- May 2
Kona II: Brume -- May 7
Little Kitty, Big City -- May 9
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons -- May 14

Read more