Xbox Outage Exposes Offline Mode's Hidden Dependence on Online Licensing

A near-16-hour Xbox outage on July 26, 2026 blocked disc-based games after an external licensing service failed. CTO Scott Van Vliet confirmed consoles couldn't use cached entitlements — digital proof of ownership — and that offline mode relies on those same saved entitlements. Microsoft's documentation states disc-supported games "should be available for offline use."