又一場全面數位版遊戲未來的「事故演習」。
微軟的Xbox Live服務最近遭遇了大規模的故障。據多家外媒報道，26-27日這兩天，許多Xbox玩家沒法啟動遊戲，按下圖標就會報錯。
從當時的Xbox狀態頁和相關留言區來看，受影響的服務不單單是啟動遊戲，而且玩家間受影響的情況五花八門。有人表示一切正常無事發生，但有人則無法登錄賬號，還有人看不到自己的遊戲庫，甚至還有人連實體版遊戲都打不開。
Xbox的技術負責人在伺服器恢復後出面解釋，表示事故源於一項Xbox體系之外、卻被平台依賴的授權服務。這項服務發生異常後，賬號登錄、遊戲庫讀取和啟動許可一起受到牽連。
而在修復過程中，Xbox的工程團隊通過轉移流量來恢復響應，但各地區的恢復速度可能不一致，一定程度上解釋了玩家遇到的問題為何各不相同。
Earlier today, many players began experiencing issues with sign in, enumerating their game libraries and playing games. The team has worked hard throughout the day to fix the issue, and we've restored service as of 2:30 PM PDT. Nonetheless, this is an unacceptable situation, and we must do better to support you. Over the coming weeks, you'll hear more from me about our services, our platform, and the work we're doing to make XBOX better. And that starts with some transparency about this incident. What happened. Late last night, a licensing service that sits outside of XBOX, but which XBOX depends upon, began failing. This caused some sign-in scenarios to fail, and it caused many scenarios that require an entitlement check to also fail, such as listing out your Full Library and launching games that you own. It also affected several of our publishing and store partners who depend on those same systems which is why some of you saw issues in specific games and not others. What we did. Our on-call teams caught the first signals overnight through automated monitoring and declared a major incident. Once we isolated the failing infrastructure, we shifted traffic onto the healthy parts of the system while the team continued to work towards a root cause. Service came back unevenly across regions which is why some of you recovered hours before others. What's next. We're running a full post-incident review. I care less about the one-line root cause and more about the real questions: why a failure in one service was able to take down this much, why recovery took as long as it did, and what we change so a single point of failure can't ruin your night again. That means hardening the dependencies underneath sign in and game launch, improving how we detect and contain this class of failure, and being faster and clearer with you when something breaks. Thank you for your patience, and for the reports that genuinely helped us narrow this down. We'll do better.
事情到此也不算結束，網路恢復正常之後，網上開始流傳起了兩則Xbox伺服器失控的傳言，像是伺服器授權功能有了漏洞，可以直接白嫖下載沒買過的遊戲；
OJO 🚨 EL CAOS EN XBOX: DE UN APAGÓN MASIVO A UN EXPLOIT HISTÓRICO 🟢 Los servidores de Xbox Live han sufrido una caída mundial, impidiendo a los usuarios iniciar sesión o jugar a sus propios títulos. Pero este desastre acaba de dar un giro completamente surrealista. A raíz del apagón, la comunidad ha descubierto un fallo crítico en la conectividad. Aprovechando el caos en la verificación de licencias, los jugadores están utilizando un glitch con la Xbox App para descargar y jugar títulos que ni siquiera han comprado. Y la locura va más allá: el exploit está permitiendo acceder a juegos descatalogados que ya es imposible adquirir legalmente en la tienda. Auténticas reliquias como Peter Jackson's King Kong de Xbox 360, Marvel UItimate Alliance o Left 4 Dead están siendo instaladas masivamente. Lanzamientos recientes como 007 o Lego Batman también. Varias comunidades (especialmente en LATAM) se han organizado rápidamente en grupos para compartir listas de juegos vulnerables mientras Microsoft intenta frenar la hemorragia.
「可以白嫖遊戲」一事不好判斷真偽，即便是真的也可能會被秋後算賬
與此同時，還有人表示Xbox上突然能搜到一些早已下架的絕版遊戲。但很快也有玩家指出這種情況其實已經持續很久了，這些遊戲雖然能在商店裡被搜到、下載，但根本沒法正常運行，屬於Xbox一個沒解決的老毛病了。
⚠️ CUIDADO La comunidad ha encontrado un posible exploit relacionado con los problemas que están afectando a los servicios de Xbox. Según varios usuarios, es posible descargar desde la app de Xbox algunos juegos que ya no aparecen disponibles en la Microsoft Store e incluso iniciarlos como si la licencia estuviera activa. Xbox no se ha pronunciado pero si lo vas a hacer, que sea bajo tu propio riesgo.
主機的網路服務宕機不是新鮮事，只是這次事故發生的時機很微妙。對內此時恰好是Xbox經歷大裁員、重組，可以說最為風雨飄搖的時候，對於正試圖重振品牌形象、信任的Xbox來說，眼下發生這種情況多少是雪上加霜；
與此同時，此時正值隔壁索尼宣布「未來停發實體光碟」後不久，兩者疊加在一起，關於數位版遊戲授權混亂導致的各種問題，讓人們多少有點風聲鶴唳。
Made this sorry quailty isn't professional but wanted to show why physical copy of any game you buy shpuld be playable online or offline as shown here. Not after anyone this is to show when there is an outage like right now having the physical copy is important. Thanks for caring
例如在相關推文的留言區下，很多人難以接受實體光碟這次也沒能躲過一劫，過去同時承擔安裝介質和許可憑證的光碟，在伺服器宕機後照樣也可能變成廢品。
Pretty wild that we spend $1,000s on digital games and can't access any of them without an internet connection or if your servers go down. We need new consumer laws in place. If we buy something physical or digital it should be ours and used whenever we want, not a license.
其實提到索尼這一邊，其實幾天前PlayStation Network 也經歷了一場不大不小的宕機。7月24日的時候，PSN所有涉及聯網的功能通通停擺，僅剩離線服務可用，最後伺服器宕機了大約8小時。
受影響最大的除了玩家以外，也包括計劃於這天展開線上測試的《漫威鬥魂》。值得注意的是，《漫威鬥魂》這次測試的平台除了PS主機外，也包括PC平台，尷尬之處在於PC用戶想試玩遊戲也要綁定PSN賬號——跟著成了PSN宕機的受害者。
To our Tōkon Warriors, We're aware that some PlayStation players are experiencing login and network issues. Our team is actively investigating the problem and working to identify the cause. We'll share updates as soon as we have more information. Thank you for your patience while we work on resolving this. For FAQs, troubleshooting, and additional assistance , please join our official Discord server 👇
總體來看，玩家擔心的也不是伺服器宕機這麼簡單。
遊戲行業在數位發行上的增長趨勢明顯，未來主機行業的服務大概率會全面轉為線上模式，可能整體只是時間問題。不過隨著這樣的未來漸漸逼近，像「御三家」這樣的遊戲企業是否真的做好了準備，玩家在數位商品上的正當權益能不能得到保障……明顯還有很多令玩家不安的疑問有待解答。
