Xbox experienced a significant outage this week, impacting both online services and, unexpectedly, the ability for some players to access games on physical discs. The company's technology chief, Scott Van Vliet, explained the issue stemmed from problems with an external licensing service.

Van Vliet clarified that disc-based games *should* remain playable offline, as entitlement checks are designed to be stored locally. However, the system responsible for this failed during the outage. "Disc-based entitlement checks should not prevent players from accessing their games and this is by design," he stated to The Verge.

A fix for this specific problem is expected in an upcoming update. This incident adds to a challenging period for Xbox, which has recently seen new leadership, price hikes, and plans for 3,200 job cuts following a difficult 2025.