Xbox Live is down, and the outage is causing gamers to think their consoles are broken

Xbox/Twitter

This mostly blank screen is what a handful of Xbox One owners saw when they booted up their console this afternoon.

• Microsoft is investigating an Xbox Live service outage as players report log-in issues and problems with game updates.
• Multiple players reported seeing an all-black screen when booting their Xbox One, leading some to believe their video game console was broken.
• While Xbox Support has acknowledged the issues, their own website for status updates appeared to be suffering downtime too.
• Xbox Live goes down for routine maintenance each week, but rarely suffers from unexpected downtime.

Microsoft is investigating multiple service issues with Xbox Live, as players around the world report problems with log-ins, failed game updates, and error messages on Xbox consoles.

According to the official service status webpage, Xbox Live Core Services has been limited since 1:12 p.m. EST; a third-party website, Down Detector, showed an influx of reports starting at 12:46 p.m. EST. On Twitter, Xbox Support staff said they were investigating the problems and will share more information as fixes are made.

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Multiple people reported that their Xbox One consoles booted up to a totally black screen during the Xbox Live service outage, including Business Insider reporter Ben Gilbert. A few gamers on Twitter were worried that their system had died when they saw a black screen with no error message.

Xbox Live is a necessity for playing Xbox games online, and some games require a connection to Xbox Live to be played at all. Live is also essential for a bunch of non-gaming apps, like Netflix and Twitch. Xbox Live undergoes regular maintenance but rarely suffers unexpected downtime. Most outages only last a few hours; Xbox Live's longest outage lasted 11 days, during the holiday season of 2007-08.

Be sure to check back for updates as Microsoft works to get Xbox Live fully restored.

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