Update, Dec. 28: Xbox has announced that a fix for the issues affecting Xbox Cloud Gaming and Remote Play services in various territories has now been deployed.
In the wee hours of the morning on December 28, Xbox announced that a fix for the issues affecting Xbox Cloud Gaming and other web services, including Remote Play, has now been deployed. Players who were experiencing inaccurate load times or were unable to launch games should now be able to access titles via the cloud as intended.
Users should once again be able to launch Cloud Gaming titles and no longer see high wait times. We appreciate your patience and happy gaming! https://t.co/dTjQOzVaFlDecember 28, 2024
Some replies to Xbox’s announcement declared ongoing issues with long launch times, though this could likely continue as a result of increased demand during the holiday season. Microsoft did not issue a formal announcement as to the direct cause of the issue, nor did it address the reasons behind the initial delay of the fix.
Original story: Xbox Cloud Gaming and associated web services have been hit with outages in some areas, but support teams are currently working to address the issues.
An outage was initially reported via official Xbox communication channels on December 26. Players have reported that Xbox Cloud Games are not starting up or are unexpectedly disconnecting after games start. According to Xbox’s Status page, a fix for the outage was recently pending, but deploying the fix took “longer than anticipated.” As of the time of writing, players were still encountering issues with Xbox Cloud Gaming and Remote Play services.
The official Xbox Support social media accounts recently shared that some players were seeing incorrectly high wait times when launching cloud games. Support teams reported that the games were expected to launch faster than the display listed.
Users may see an incorrectly high wait time when attempting to launch a cloud gaming title. Our teams expect that users will be able to connect faster than the elevated time shown. https://t.co/vdGXVBNZ2tDecember 27, 2024
Not all territories with access to the Xbox Cloud Gaming and Remote Play services were seeing limited functionality during this outage. However, Xbox has not outright specified which regions are adversely affected. Windows Central’s own Jez Corden, for example, has said that the service is working in his region. However, one user on social media reported a wait time of 175 minutes when trying to access Fortnite via Cloud Gaming. Others were reporting wait times of 220-255 minutes. For some, long wait times only came to an end with the crushing defeat of a disconnect, leaving them no choice but to attempt to launch and face long wait times once again.
While Xbox has not addressed the reason behind the service outage, the long queue lines are partnered with a message that “Lots of people are playing!” indicating the servers for Xbox Cloud Gaming could be taking a hit due to the holiday demand. Microsoft kicked off its “This is an Xbox” marketing campaign to highlight cloud gaming on a greater variety of devices outside of just consoles right before the holiday shopping season. With more players signing in to Xbox Cloud Gaming via Game Pass on fresh new devices acquired during the holiday gift-giving season, there’s more strain on the banks of consoles that are powering the service in data centers.
