XBox Live Currently Experiencing Widespread Outage

By Cynthia Herbert :: 6:18 PM

Microsoft’s XBox Live gaming and media delivery service for its Xbox console line has been suffering a widespread outage this afternoon, rendering many games and applications unusable.

Because many applications on the Xbox are tied to a user’s Xbox Live Gold subscription, popular selections like HBO GO, Hulu, Netflix and YouTube are completely non-functional on the console during such an outage.

At 5:56 PM (Eastern Time), Microsoft updated its status page to note that the company is still “hard at work fixing the issue members are having signing in,” but did not offer any estimated time for the service to be restored.

Such a widespread outage couldn’t come at a worse time for the company. Last weekend, it was dealing with issues and defending itself around the notion of “always-on” Internet connections for gameplay on its yet-to-be-announced next generation console. The company was on the defensive after one of its creative directors took to Twitter in support of Internet-connected gaming, and suggested that users who didn’t agree with him should just “deal with it.” That employee no longer works at Microsoft.