Microsoft makes minor changes to Teams, Xbox Live to address surge in activity

Microsoft has started to tweak its cloud services following a massive increase in user activity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We have seen a 775 percent increase of our cloud services in regions that have enforced social distancing or shelter in place orders,” the tech giant noted in a blog post.

Windows Virtual Desktop usage has increased more than three times and there have been record numbers reported for Microsoft Teams, Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live.

Microsoft Teams faced a few outages after its users increased by 12 million in just one week earlier this month. The tech giant says that it is temporarily making some changes to parts of Teams to enhance reliability.

“We made a few temporary adjustments to select non-essential capabilities such as how often we check for user presence, the interval in which we show when the other party is typing, and video resolution.”

Further, Microsoft is also making some small adjustments to Xbox services. It has temporarily turned off the ability to upload custom gamerpics, club pics and club backgrounds. Current custom Xbox gamerpics won’t be impacted, but the tech giant is looking to decrease the load on its moderation team during a time of increased activity.

It is also working alongside Xbox game publishers to “deliver higher-bandwidth activities like game updates during off-peak hours.”

It’s not surprising that Microsoft has decided to make some minor changes given the surge in activity. It will be interesting to see if other companies follow, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has noted that the platform is just “trying to keep the lights on.”

Source: Microsoft, Xbox Support Via: The Verge 

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