Over the past month, gamers on both platforms have reported encountering Xbox Live service outages that have affected popular services from Twitch and Netflix, to general gameplay. While the Xbox One-centric issues have since been sorted out, gamers using Xbox Live on the Xbox 360 continue to encounter issues with some of its most integral services.

According to Xbox Support, it is the social and gaming side of the service that is encountering the issues. Sadly, this just so happens to represent the brunt of Xbox Live’s intended use. At the current time, there is still no word on when the outages will be rectified. In the most recent update update posted at 10:55pm GMT on July 31, Microsoft stated the following:

With the recent news that PlayStation consoles tripled the sales of Xbox consoles in the first quarter of the fiscal year, this is not likely to help quell the console war that continues to persist among consumers. Regardless of these service issues, it’s still a great time to be an Xbox gamer. Between the news that Halo 5 and the upcoming TV series would be unified and the August Games With Gold offerings for Xbox Live Gold subscribers, there’s still a ton of incentives to soldier through the service’s outages.

All issues aside, it’s hard to deny the overwhelming number of positives that come from predominantly online services. Not only do they make connecting with other gamers criminally easy, but they make almost anything one could want from a console available at their fingertips. These issues will likely continue to persist through future console generations, but as the services grow to provide more and more functionality, these drawbacks will just have to be a necessary evil.

Do you think the issues that come as a product of online services are outweighed by the benefits of these services? Do you see issues like these ever truly disappearing?


Follow Ryan on Twitter @ThatRyanB.

Source: Xbox Support