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On February 4th, 2022, players found issues logging into Xbox Live, as down detector and Twitter alike were flooded with complaints. The main issue people took issue with, somewhat understandably, was their inability to log into Minecraft… on PC.
So why are so many PC games so intrinsically linked with Xbox Live? What does it mean if you play these games on PC with a Microsoft account? And how does it relate to Microsoft’s domination of the gaming industry?
Xbox Live is down
Players are unable to sign into Xbox Live Gold at the time of writing (2am PST/5am EST/10am GMT) and, according to multiple reports on Twitter, this issue has been ongoing for some hours now. It also seems that the issue is currently only affecting PC players, as well, which almost makes the situation more frustrating, as gamers actually using an Xbox are apparently now able to play. This may be why there is also no update on the problem on the official Xbox Status webpage, or official Xbox socials.
Minecraft Java Edition’s Xbox Live integration
While gamers are unable to play anything through Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass, or Microsoft and Xbox Game Studio games such as Halo or Sea of Thieves, the most complaints seem to be around Minecraft Java Edition.
Since Microsoft took over ownership of Mojang in 2014, they have started transferring all Mojang accounts over to Microsoft accounts. This means players have to log into a Microsoft account in order to play Minecraft – even the PC Java version, not just the Bedrock (or console) edition. Not all players, though, because the migration isn’t complete yet. Therefore, to make matters worse, those who are still using Mojang accounts presumably will be able to play Minecraft right now.
The issue with Minecraft itself is even more frustrating when Xbox Live goes down because, in contrast to the likes of Halo and Sea of Thieves, Minecraft doesn’t need Xbox Live Gold to be played. The main survival game is completely offline, single-player gameplay, so being unable to play because you can’t log into a Microsoft account is somewhat of a contradiction – and incredibly irritating to dedicated Minecraft fans.
Microsoft’s takeover of Activision Blizzard
The question then is, what could this mean during future downtime following Microsoft’s massive Activision Blizzard takeover? There are a whole host of popular single-player and online multiplayer games alike that will end up being owned by the gaming giant in a year or so, and could end up with the same fate as Minecraft when Xbox Live servers inevitably go down in the future. Hopefully, Microsoft will realise there’s a massive flaw in this issue, and won’t force players to log into Microsoft accounts for access to all their games.
