An Xbox service outage temporarily prevented some players from launching physical games, highlighting how console ownership can still depend on online authentication. Microsoft’s vice-president of Xbox engineering, Eden Marie, said the company is investigating the failure and working to prevent a repeat.

The issue reportedly affected Xbox consoles during a wider outage, with users unable to play certain disc-based titles while offline checks could not be completed. Microsoft has not set out a specific technical fix or timetable, but the response acknowledges concerns about digital dependencies affecting games bought on physical media.