With the coronavirus pandemic still having a major global impact, people remain heavily reliant on electronics and online services to help pass the time while being stuck at home. Naturally, gaming has seen a major boom in usage and popularity, even getting approval from one of its former detractors, the World Health Organization. With numbers and populations surging, online services have begun to strain a bit with companies like Microsoft making moves to reduce the load on Xbox Live enabled devices.

While surging populations of players is something any company like Sony or Microsoft would like to see, it could also spell trouble for those who are unprepared. As such, Microsoft has made a few small adjustments to Xbox Live to ensure that the service remains smooth and stable throughout this trying time. Players can no longer upload custom gamerpics for their profiles. In addition, the ability to upload pictures for club backgrounds has also been disabled.

RELATED: Two Games Are Free With Xbox Live Gold Right Now

Microsoft also provided an update on its cloud networks, confirming that the company is keeping an eye on performance and usage trends. To help optimization and minimize the impact of increased bandwidth, the company even suggested to its partners to hold back higher-bandwidth activities like game updates for off-peak hours.

xbox live gold deals 3 month

While these changes may not impact everyone, it's worth noting that they're only temporary and will be reverted at some point in the future once things have calmed down and the usage rates drop back to normal levels.

While Microsoft has largely weathered the storm, it hasn't been flawless since the work from home order struck. Xbox Live, a traditionally reliable and stable service, went down multiple times over the course of a few days which negatively impacted sign in and matchmaking. Thankfully, Microsoft responded quickly and since then, the service has been working as expected. These changes should certainly help in keeping things running smoothly through these challenging times.

The reliance on video games, online marketplaces, and streaming technology has seen a major uptick across the board. The Nintendo Switch has been selling like crazy over the past couple weeks, YouTube has had to lower video quality speeds worldwide, and Niantic has made sweeping changes to its games like Pokemon Go. Valve has also seen a huge boost on Steam as it not only sets and subsequently breaks its own user records. As of last week, the online service had registered over 22 million active users, breaking its previous 20 million record and continues to serve as a major achievement for the platform.

MORE: Microsoft Explains Why the Xbox Series X is Shaped Like A Fridge

Source: Microsoft, (1);