Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) recovered nicely after a protracted outage hit its premier gaming service, Xbox Live. Microsoft shares finished up fractionally following the restoration of services.
Starting yesterday afternoon and continuing well into the evening, Microsoft was trying to restore Xbox Live service as thousands of outage reports flooded in. While some users reported messages that said the system was down for “scheduled maintenance,” others never saw this particular advisory notice and were left wondering what the real story was. One user reported that, amazingly, Xbox Live was so down that its service outage reporting system was itself down.
Before Wednesday dawned, however, Microsoft had restored service, advising its customers that there should “…no longer be…issues signing into Xbox Live and services.” As for what exactly went wrong in the first place, that was largely mum, as multiple sources attempted to find out and got little in the way of response.
Microsoft and Nvidia Deal?
In an unexpected twist, Microsoft’s next gaming hardware push may feature quite a bit of help from Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA). We know from earlier reveals that Microsoft had plans for an inexpensive streaming box for cloud gaming. But the newest word suggests that Nvidia may be out to bring GeForce Now to Xbox consoles.
Indeed, in some ways, an Xbox really is a gaming PC, albeit a highly specialized model with a unique interface. Putting GeForce Now into an Xbox would ratchet that perception up significantly, including the potential for 120 frames per second streaming at up to 4K resolution. Given reports from Valve that 59% of Steam users are using Xbox controllers to play, it does lend some extra support to the notion that the Xbox may be branching out sooner than expected.
Is Microsoft a Buy or Sell Right Now?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 32 Buys and one Hold assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 37.16% rally in its share price over the past year, the average MSFT price target of $500.55 per share implies 8.73% upside potential.
