Xbox 360 and Xbox One gamers will now need to sign in to their Xbox Live account once every 5 years to keep hold of their gamertag and account, Microsoft has announced in an update to their Service Agreement.
This new change won’t impact those who are active and regularly use Xbox Live, however, anyone with an account who doesn’t log-in to the service at least once every 5 years will lose their account, including their gamertag. Xbox 360 owners who no longer use Xbox Live are at the most risk, especially those who have a highly sought after gamertag which they may not want to risk losing.
Recently, Microsoft released over 1 million expired gamertags which were claimed during the original Xbox days for people to now use as their own. With more and more people using Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, the company wants to avoid the best gamertags being claimed by inactive accounts.
In addition to losing your gamertag, it also seems as if you may be at risk of losing your entire account, including all of your purchases if you fail to log-in at least once over the course of 5 years.
“If you don’t sign in during this time, we will assume your Microsoft account is inactive and will close it for you,” a line in the new agreement states. Microsoft are yet to clarify fully, however, whether or not users will lose access to their whole account, including purchases.
