Update 9/7: Xbox Live services returned last night after being down for about three hours. Original story follows.

Xbox Live core services are currently down for Xbox One users. This latest outage is especially disappointing, as it is happening on the same day that Gears 5 launched for Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscribers and for those who pre-ordered the Ultimate Edition of the game.

The Xbox Live core services that are down include signing in, creating, managing, or recovering an account, and using the Microsoft Store's search function. In our own testing, we were unable to sign in to a different account, but an account we were already signed in on is working fine. That being said, we are unable to access the online component of various games, having tested Gears 5 and Monster Hunter World.

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It's unclear exactly what is causing the current Xbox Live service problems. However, it's worth pointing out that this is arguably one of the biggest days of the year for Xbox One gamers, and it's possible that the servers are experiencing more stress than usual. As previously mentioned, today is the day when players can finally play Gears 5 if they get early access, and on top of that, it's also the launch day for NBA 2K20 and the Monster Hunter World: Iceborne expansion. Considering this, it's safe to say that there may be more people on Xbox Live all at once than any other day of the year.

However, server strain is just speculation at this time. Xbox Support has not shared a reason for why Xbox Live core services are down, and traditionally, it never does so. However, it seems that more transparency may be in the company's best interest, as this past couple of weeks has seen Xbox Live go down multiple times.

Having Xbox Live go down at all is problematic for Microsoft, but it's especially disappointing for it to go down today. This comes after Gears 5 itself has had multiplayer issues today, which has prevented many users from being able to properly experience the game and its various online modes. Hopefully the issues with Gears 5 and Xbox Live in general are resolved sooner rather than later.

We will update this article once Xbox Live services have been restored.

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