Maybe we’re all just getting a little bored?
Today, the Xbox Live servers went down for the umpteenth time, sparking a bit of a riot over social media. This isn’t normally much of an event – the servers go down fairly often – but people are taking it to another level now.
Earlier in the week on Thursday, the servers failed for the online play, rendering thousands of Xbox fans out of service. Again, all normal so far, and though many people were upset, there wasn’t much of an issue and Microsoft was able to get the servers back up and running before too long.
Now only a scant few days later, the servers are down again, and people aren’t having it. The thousands of fans have taken to social media – especially Twitter – to yell their heads off at the Xbox support accounts. It’s even gone to trending on Twitter, overshadowing even the Corona Virus and Democratic Debates that are trending as well.
So why are the servers going down so often? Many fans are saying in expletive-fueled rants that Xbox is dragging fans into the issues they’re facing due to COVID-19, stating that the servers are going down because Microsoft sent their engineers home.
We understand some users may be experiencing errors with sign in or matching making on Xbox Live, and are currently investigating. Please check back here for details.
— Xbox Support (@XboxSupport) March 15, 2020
Others are speculating that the servers can’t handle the load of all of the people trying to log on and play while under quarantine or practicing the government-advised social-distancing to help stop the spreading of the pandemic. Perhaps, according to these users, the servers just aren’t strong enough to handle a higher number of players than usual?
Is it COVID-19 or some other sort of outward influence? Probably not, no. Microsoft has a pretty lengthy history of having absolute dumpster fires instead of servers, so it’s not like this is a rare occurrence. Again, twice in a week? Come on, now.
Because of the frequency, many of the outraged Twitter users are voicing their newfound loyalty to the upcoming next-gen PlayStation console, or that they’ll be canceling their subscription and moving to Switch to play the upcoming Animal Crossing title instead. Some have even begun a petition to raise support for Microsoft to give every player affected by the server issues $5 USD in recompense.
Things might be hitting a fever pitch because society is full of stress and boredom in equal parts nowadays. Either way, Microsoft should have their servers up and running before too much longer – until they go back down again.
