Popular Xbox Feature Suddenly Stops Working for Some Users

Xbox wish lists have stopped working for some users, according to numerous online complaints that have emerged online in late February. The problem appears to affect the last two generations of Xbox consoles and has also been observed by PC users, although Microsoft has yet to officially acknowledge the situation.

Wish lists are a Microsoft Store feature that has been available on PC and Xbox consoles since late 2018, having debuted as part of the same update that added shopping cart functionality to the storefront. The self-explanatory feature spent months in beta testing before rolling out to everyone, and has worked fairly consistently over the past half a decade.

But its track record has incurred a blemish in recent days, as evidenced by the ongoing influx of reports from Xbox gamers claiming their wish lists have stopped working. The issue materialized over the final weekend of February, resulting in at least hundreds of wish lists being wiped clean. Trying to (re-)add titles to them is said to only work temporarily, as any new items will reportedly disappear again after a while. User reports on social media suggest the issue affects both the Xbox PC app and Microsoft's consoles, implying the root cause is server-side.

The tech giant has yet to acknowledge the issue through its official channels. The US and UK versions of the Xbox Status website both claim that wish lists have been «up and running» over the past several days, despite numerous reports to the contrary. The same site encourages users to report any service outages not listed on its pages via a simple submission form. Dozens of Xbox gamers claimed to have already done that since February 24.

According to several user testimonies, the contents of their buggy Xbox wish lists have actually reappeared at least once over the past several days, only to disappear yet again. While some players have expressed frustrations with the ongoing situation, the silver lining is that this oddly ephemeral behavior