Update March 11 at 1 p.m.: Rockstar says GTA: Online is working as intended on all platforms.
Grand Theft Auto V got a big update today, but you may have a difficult time playing it.
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Separately, Microsoft has had some issues of its own with its Xbox Live service.
“We are aware of some issues today with players having problems connecting to GTA Online, as well as issues with the Xbox Live service,” a spokesperson for Rockstar said in a statement. “We are working to restore full access to GTA Online as quickly as possible. In the meantime, players can monitor the performance of all platforms on our GTA Online status page, located here.”
GTA: Online is the multiplayer game that comes includes with GTA V. It enables players to join one another in cooperative tasks and events, and developer Rockstar just added four-player bank heists to that list of activities. GTA: Online is also one of the ways that Rockstar and publisher Take-Two Interactive are generating more money from their biggest hit. Players can purchase digital currency in the game to buy in-game housing, vehicles, and attire. Take-Two credited this with helping it bring in record digital revenue last quarter.
This outage is just the latest for GTA: Online. When the game launched on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 back in 2013, its servers were down for days at a time. Players couldn’t get into it for most of the first week and more. To make up for that, Rockstar gifted players free in-game cash. If this problem continues, the developer may have to do that one more time.
While the servers for GTA: Online are experiencing issues on every platform, Xbox 360 gamers are having an especially difficult time today. The Xbox Live service on that console was down for a large number of gamers earlier today, and that prevented people from logging into their accounts. Even people who did manage to log in couldn’t get matchmaking working, which is a requisite for something like GTA: Online.
Microsoft has since addressed and fixed the core Xbox Live issues, but the GTA: Online-specific problems continue.