Current outage revealed huge flaw with digital content and game pass…

if your console is set as the home console and the internet or live goes out, you need to set as offline via the network settings, then any games that are not online only games should run ok apart from gamepass games and gold games as these need an active connection.

the ones this will affect the most are those that insist on sharing there purchases as that mean another console is set as home and they would need to be online to use their games.

Yeah, my problem was that my Series X had not been set as my home console when I upgraded from my XB1 and it wouldn't let me designate it as such when I tried while XBL was down. Consequently, I couldn't then set it as offline.

Of course, as my Mum pointed out this morning, I could have used my XB1 which is still setup but clearly realising that needed more brain capacity than I had at that time lol

Recommendations consider as a potential solution: Having the equivalent of an Outlook “.ost” file containing registration/ownership info when consoles are not or get disconnected from Xbox.com, would allow owners to launch purchased and owned games during such major outages in stage of stopping all game play….

if your console is set as the home console and the internet or live goes out, you need to set as offline via the network settings, then any games that are not online only games should run ok apart from gamepass games and gold games as these need an active connection.

the ones this will affect the most are those that insist on sharing there purchases as that mean another console is set as home and they would need to be online to use their games.

I recently had a short internet outage where the game I was playing quit to dashboard as I wasn't online...wasn't until yesterday though that I really saw the effects of no XBL. Couldn't open any of my games at all, couldn't designate my current Xbox as my Home Xbox (thought it had changed when I upgraded my console) presumably because I wasn't connected to XBL, couldn't change to Offline Mode due to not being my "Home" console.

I understand games with Multiplayer components or games with Seasons etc needing to be online but not games without MP. This kind of shows the limitations of the service

Hi O.P.,

Thanks for the response.

Setting the console to “Home Console” assumes one you only have one console and there is a 25 digit key code you need to enter during an initial install so there is a registration process that associates that game key code with my account otherwise I’d have to renter it every time I logged off and then back in; that key is unique to my purchase, my installation and account and the one I was referring to in my original posts.

Unsure of what the process is when it comes to the reselling of games (that wasn’t my point) and if the vendors (like GameStop) are part of a partner program where Microsoft requires the generation of a new unique 25 digit key code (can’t imagine Microsoft editing registration info of a game -risk of compromising consumers’ private information, or placing its consumers at risk of false arrest because of any anti-piracy efforts, unless Microsoft no longer cares to protect its IP and legitimate consumers (I know once upon a time, Microsoft had an huge initiative involving the protection of intellectual properties (IP}, especially when it came to its own Windows and Office Products in an effort to ensure consumers purchased genuine Microsoft Product verse pirated copies of Microsoft products, so not having a similar initiative to protect the intellectual properties of Xbox products, would be a “want your cake and eat it too” thing for Microsoft which has definitely lost its identity in not wanting to become like AOL’s support model in the late 1990s (at one point AOL customers would call Microsoft Support for assistance out of frustration because there was no direct path to AOL support); Xbox support? Get through the wizard by answering questions only to be told there’s no support for the consumer when the questions are two general or not descriptive enough or in trying to return a purchase with the window of opportunity, being told via email I’ve returned my allotted annual amount of returns for the year so my return request was deny, ticket closed, even though I had returned anything; these are d-sat examples I’ve actually had as a consumer of Microsoft Xbox.

Consumers do have a voice, they have what you might call “buying power”. By withholding key or valuable feedback, products aren’t improved and customer sat is placed at risk, while the not so tech savvy consumers are taken advantage of. Advertising a console as low cost while knowing that there are hidden costs or additional out of pocket expenses for the consumer is a disingenuous attempt by Microsoft at deceiving its loyal customer\consumers for profit (rule of acquisition # ?).

There were two options presented, one to delete the quick launch option and play offIine and the second to use quick launch option (which causes games to close and restart instead of launching - A console feature that would require game developers to incorporate in order to work as designed btw). Neither option worked - I could not play any games because at that point I was being prompted to log into Xbox as the user who purchased the game I was trying to launch locally which could not be done because Xbox.com was having problem.

(Side note: As I said originally, “new games” can not utilize their purchased external storage for new games (if you buy a Series S/X console, your going to want to play S/X content) and games that have been update to provide S/X which means some of the games on those external drives, including the drives purchase with the last year or two, are no longer viable solutions or hardware to use requiring consumers to purchase the only recommend and supported solution - a Seagate Expansion Card.)