Xbox Game Pass is back up and running following a widespread outage that began on Thursday (July 25) and lasted into the weekend.
Several Xbox players trying to access Game Pass had been experiencing two different issues. Those trying to purchase or re-up Game Pass subscriptions were blocked from making payments, locking them out of the service. Meanwhile, players who could still access Game Pass found that some or all of the games in the system were not showing up or appeared to be missing information. Other Xbox services did not appear to be affected by whatever was plaguing GamePass.
The Xbox Support Twitter page acknowledged the outage around 5 PM ET on Thursday. On Saturday evening at 9:25 PM ET, Xbox Support tweeted that it'd patched the issue and players should no longer be running into trouble with Xbox Game Pass.
Xbox has had a rough time this month, with Xbox Live suffering a global outage just before the July 4th holiday that lasted more than 12 hours.
As of 3:20 PM ET, the Xbox Status page still lists the Game Pass outage as major with the separate issues of purchasing a game pass and seeing game pass games still being affected.
Xbox has not released any information on a potential timeline to resolve the issues beyond acknowledging that the outage is ongoing.
We're only a few days from the major Crowdstrike outage that affected businesses and government agencies worldwide.
Some Redditors are speculating whether or not the Crowdstrike crash is having a delayed effect on Xbox's systems.
This probably isn't it since the Crowdstrike fix came through earlier this week. That said, it does have to be a clock or calendar issue within the Game Pass system. Several reports have shown that accounts with expiring subs around July 17 through the 19th have been stuck in pending payment since then.
The Crowdstrike outage started on July 19th.
I am seeing speculation from Xbox players saying that it appears related to the upcoming Game Pass price increase.
That increase isn't officially supposed to go into affect until September 12, but Redditors and X-users are claiming that Xbox support is having to cancel their subscriptions and renew it but they're doing it at the higher $19.99 price instead of the current $16.99 cost.
Redditor Knaught said - "Ya, I just got done with online support. I was like 107th in line, waited an hour +. Another hour getting it fixed. They cancelled my subscription and signed me back up. It was all a pain in the rear. Now my monthly payment day I had set where I wanted it to fall in the month got changed. Hard to believe how dumb this whole thing is over their greedy price hike. During the support I told them it was lame they were not acknowledging the problem for users. Later in the conversation she assured me they now were acknowledging the problem. Charged me 16.99 for this month and gave me some Xbox balance points so the next bill being 18.99, would just be 16.99."
One error screen we keep seeing screenshots of is related to extending game pass with the error telling gamers "You already own this." It could be related to trying to extend through the price increase and the system blocking it out, but that's just speculation.
Game Pass is still suffering some sort of outage.
Over on Reddit, a Redditor claims to have spoken with Xbox support who claim to have a fix in the works. They mentioned that an email will be going out with instructions and information on how to fix the subscription renewal issue.
We have reached out to Xbox for a comment and will update if they respond. However, during the last outage, no one from Xbox was inclined to provide an answer, so we're not expecting one this time either.
Currently, this Game Pass outage has been ongoing for nearly 20 hours.
No one from Xbox has officially said anything but the Xbox status page received a small tweak that indicates this Game Pass issue may extend longer than 24 hours.
Both the sign in issue and the viewing games issue now say that the first outage was reported at 9 AM this morning (July 26), which doesn't feel correct unless they're considering last nights problems a different thing.
The more interesting update is that it looks like the issue won't be resolved until an estimated 5:55 AM tomorrow (July 27) morning.
For those who are affected, you may still be waiting overnight.
A Microsoft spokesperson reached out to us regarding the Game Pass outage. Unfortunately, they did not provide more details for us beyond checking the status page.
"We’re working to resolve issues some members may be having impacting renewals of gaming subscriptions. Please visit https://xbox.com/status for status updates."
It is 3 p.m. Pacific and Game Pass is still having issues. The outage report timing has moved back to 5 p.m. yesterday with the fix looking like its ongoing.
Otherwise, we're seeing that this Game Pass outage may be global as people from around the world report issues on Twitter and Reddit.
We're seeing reports that like when Xbox Live went down, if you disconnect from the internet, you should be able to still play games.
Unfortunately, this doesn't help for any games that were picked up via Game Pass or certain multiplayer games, which require the service to even access.
The outage is ongoing and for some people we're nearing 24 hours without Game Pass access, which means they haven't been able to enjoy their Xbox games.
The PC version of Game Pass appears to be unaffected.
It's a big weekend for multiplayer games as well with the Modern Warfare 3 remake coming to Game Pass and the new Valorant beta dropped today as well. Plus, EA's long awaited College Football 25 debuted last week and people are still digging into that excellent football game.
As of this writing is 5 p.m. Pacific and Xbox Game Pass is still down. We haven't heard any more from any official Microsoft channels.
The Xbox status page remains red saying that Game Pass is suffering a major outage. The Xbox support X account continues to direct queries to the status page.
We asked for more details from Microsoft spokespeople but they have declined to respond since our initial emails.
It remains unclear why Game Pass is suffering issues. It could be, as theorized earlier that the CrowdStrike outage is causing ripple affect issues. Accounts trying to pay for a continuing or new Game Pass subscription are having issues with payments being sent July 17th through the 19th, right when CrowdStrike's outage occured.
Another theory is that it's related to the price increase coming in September with a calendar or clock issue affecting people's ability to reup their subscriptions. Microsoft might not want anyone purchasing new subs and keeping the old price.
I have seen some X-users and Redditors claiming that it's related to Modern Warfare 3 being hacked yesterday. I haven't been able to confirm that MW3 was hacked. It does appear that the game or servers were suffering from an error code called "Detrick Guernsey" which also affected Modern Warfare 2, though that appears to have been a PC issue and not an Xbox one.
As of Saturday morning, the Xbox status page remains red saying that the Game Pass store and subscriptions are suffering a major outage. Viewing what games are available on Game Pass is also offline, or some details might be missing from certain titles.
A little after 8:30 AM ET, the team posted a status update that "It's taking longer than anticipated" to address the issue. No new updates have been posted on the official Xbox X account, which continues to direct queries to the status page.
For those who are affected, whether we see a fix before the weekend's out remains up in the air.
Microsoft's all-you-can-eat gaming subscription service is back! After the outage lasted through most of Saturday, Xbox Support tweeted at 9:25 pm that it had fixed whatever was plaguing Game Pass: "Users should no longer be seeing issues with Game Pass. Thanks for reporting this to us, and happy gaming!"
The Xbox status page reports all services are up and running, so thankfully it seems like business as usual for Xbox players once more. We've reached out for comment from Xbox for more info and will update once we hear back.
On Sunday, we came across a few reports of players still claiming Game Pass shows incorrect pricing information, but what they're likely seeing are price hikes that are only now going into effect for existing subscribers. Earlier this month, Game Pass Ultimate's price jumped from $16.99 to $19.99 in the U.S., £12.99 to £14.99 in the U.K., and AU$19.95 to AU$22.95 in Australia. Existing subscribers won't see this price change kick in until September 12, so if players are looking at their bill for next month following the outage, odds are they're seeing the new price.
It's unfortunate timing, to say the least, especially since is the second global outage Xbox players have seen so far this month.
