Some players are finding that their new copies of Titanfall are all but unplayable on Microsoft’s Xbox One. Xbox Live has been experiencing sign in difficulty, limiting “core services” for some users. Translation: it’s just not working. According to Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb, these issues aren’t related to Titanfall launch today. Microsoft is aware of the problem and working on a fix, he said on twitter.
There are a lot of things being tested today, and not just EA’s ability to launch an online game without crippling problems. Titanfall is the prime show horse for Microsoft’s cloud technology, as well as a certain throwback to the “Always On, Always Connected” ethos the company debuted at E3 last summer. Without a single-player mode, Titanfall must be always connected, even if Microsoft abandoned that hard-line stance after a wave of negative press.
Titanfall has been the centerpiece of its console launch ever since it was announced, and the company needs a win right now. If sign-in issues are resolved quickly and without further problems, then the backlash will probably remain limited to forum-readers, blog-followers and many of the same sort of people that probably headed to the PS4 long ago. Early purchasers will be irritated at the loss of a few hours and recover.
If it lasts more than a day or so, however, Microsoft could risk turning it’s biggest asset in these early months into just another headache. There’s nothing you can do with this disc without an internet connection, because the game has no single-player mode. Even Battlefield 4 had a single-player mode, just not a very good one. It would be a shame to see it stumble out of the gate for connectivity reasons.
