UPDATE: Xbox Live party chat and related services have now been restored.
Original story follows.
Unfortunately forXboxgamers, the platform’s online features are currently experiencing major issues, with many users unable to use party chat at all. One of the most importantXbox Livefeatures is the ability to talk with friends in party chat. This way, Xbox friends can communicate without having to worry about dealing with random players in game chat.
Xbox Live party chatsare easy to use and typically work flawlessly. Rarely are there ever any problems with party chats specifically, but that’s exactly what’s happening right now. There are enough people experiencing problems with Xbox Live party chat that Xbox itself has acknowledged the problem on social media. Xbox has said that its engineers are working to resolve the issues with party chat, though there is no clear timetable as to when the problems will be solved.
In my own testing, I have been completely unable to use Xbox Live party chats for the past 20 minutes (as of 9:41pm CT). The problems appear to have started around 40 minutes ago and persist at the time of publication. Others online have said that the problems extend to online matchmaking in Xbox games, but that has not been the case for me. I testedOverwatch 2andRainbow Six Siegemultiplayer, and I was able to get into games in both. Not only that, but game chat appeared to be working on both games as well, so it seems that Xbox Live party chats specifically are having major issues right now.
Xbox Live Party Chat Status
While this is definitely frustrating, the good news is that there are workarounds.Xbox supports Discord, giving gamers on the platform an alternative way to communicate with their friends. Game chat is also an option for those that don’t mind potentially having to talk with other players as well. Still, this is not the most ideal scenario, and hopefully, Xbox fixes the party chat issues sooner rather than later.
I will update this article once allXbox Live servicesare restored.
Xbox Series X
Microsoft’s ninth-generation console, the Xbox Series X is a powerful machine that can support 4K resolution and 60 fps, depending on the game. Released alongside the Xbox Series S, the Series X has a Custom AMD Zen 2 CPU, a Custom RDNA 2 GPU, and 16 GB of RAM.
