Xbox players are reportedly losing access to decades of games overnight, and it’s not always their fault

Some Xbox users are losing access to their entire game libraries and linked Microsoft services like OneDrive and cloud storage. The worst part is that many of these players didn’t do anything wrong. When you buy a digital game, you don’t actually own it, and now players are seeing the real consequences of that.

The impact of this problem is severe. According to Gaming Bible, industry insider Jez Corden has been investigating these reports for almost a year. He found that when Xbox bans an account for any reason, even by mistake or due to a technical error, the damage goes way beyond just losing gaming access.

Players lose their entire Xbox account, which means decades of photos stored in OneDrive and important Office documents disappear too. Getting anything back from Microsoft after this happens is extremely rare. This is devastating for people who have trusted Microsoft’s system for years.

Players are losing decades of gaming history and personal data

Many Xbox accounts have been active since the Xbox 360 era. Players have built up hundreds of games and years of GamerScore and achievements. Losing all of that overnight is a nightmare scenario that’s actually happening to real people right now.

You don’t even need to break any rules for this to happen. Account hacking is still very common in 2025. One player on X said they had their Microsoft account since Xbox 360 and spent thousands of dollars on games. After a hacker took over their account and changed the email, Microsoft told them they couldn’t recover it. Fifteen years of progress was gone forever. These shocking discoveries about tech companies continue to worry consumers about their digital safety.

This shows the main problem with giving up physical game discs. Digital purchases are convenient, but they’re not truly yours. Nobody can take a physical game disc from your shelf, but a technical error or wrong ban can erase your digital library instantly. Microsoft has been making other controversial moves lately, including quietly adding features to smart TVs without user consent.

Users were shocked when they heard about this issue. The community reaction shows how worried people are about digital ownership. “yeah sorry but thats why i only buy physical on consoles since i think early last year. I realized its kind of stupid to buy many or expensive games that are locked to an account. For digital gog is actually amazing, very underrated more people should use it,” one user wrote. 

Better consumer protection is desperately needed for digital storefronts. For now, set up 2-Factor Authentication immediately and keep your account details updated. You can’t rely on big companies to protect your investment, so you need to protect yourself.