Microsoft Addresses Xbox Outage Impact on Disc-Based Games
Following a recent outage that disrupted access to both digital and physical games, Microsoft has clarified that disc-based titles should still be playable offline despite requiring 'entitlement checks.' In response to reports of users unable to play discs during the incident, Xbox technology chief Scott Van Vliet stated these checks are not intended to block gameplay when consoles are offline. The outage began on Sunday night and lasted nearly a full day before being resolved Monday evening. Van Vliet attributed the issue to an external licensing service but acknowledged that some systems failed to use saved entitlements correctly during the disruption. A software update is expected to address this problem in the future. Entitlement checks are digital licenses tied to physical discs, and Microsoft maintains these should not prevent offline access as outlined in their documentation. The incident comes amid growing concerns over the shift away from physical media in gaming. Sony plans to stop producing PlayStation game discs by 2028, while Xbox is testing a feature that allows users to create digital copies of games they own physically.
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Topics: disc games entitlement checks outage Xbox