Xbox Live Gamertags Will Now Expire After Five Years of Inactivity

Microsoft's service agreement has been updated, which now contains a clause revealing that gamers who don't log in on their accounts might lose their Xbox gamertags.

Old or new Xbox users who haven't played on the console or logged in via the internet for a long time should know that Microsoft has recently made changes to its service agreement. Gamers who don't log in to their Microsoft accounts for a certain period will be at risk of losing their gamertags.

In the past few days, Microsoft updated its service agreement for Xbox gamers and Microsoft's other services on July 15th, and it will be active starting on September 15th. Alongside a wide variety of changes to different Microsoft services, Microsoft has revealed that gamers who forgot to log in to their Xbox Live accounts for more than five years may lose their gamertags.

Microsoft has been at work on releasing back old unused gamertags for the general public of users, and no doubt this update is to continue its efforts. Five years ago, Microsoft released unused gamertags that have not been used since the days of the original Xbox console. Nevertheless, they've also started working recently on returning inactive gamertags to active users, unleashing one million gamertags to Xbox Live Gold users some months ago.

Undoubtedly, when these service agreement changes are live, every account that hasn't been accessed for five years or more will be taken by Microsoft and re-released back to the general public. Average gamers shouldn't worry to much, as chances are huge part of the Xbox gamers have logged into their accounts not long ago.

Microsoft hasn't come forth with an explanation yet as to what will happen with users who have their gamertags taken; no doubt they'll be given a randomly-generated gamertag such as the ones that are automatically suggested to fresh users when they sign up. Gamers who haven't used their Xbox consoles and want to keep their gamertags should make sure to access their accounts before September, either by using their consoles or signing in to the Xbox homepage.