San Francisco, Jan 31 (IANS): Microsoft has announced a new bug bounty programme for its video gaming service Xbox and would pay up to $20,000 to security researchers for reporting vulnerabilities.

The Xbox Bounty Programme invites gamers, security researchers, and others around the world to help identify security vulnerabilities in the Xbox Live network and services and share them with the Xbox team, the tech giant said in a statement on Thursday.

Qualified submissions are eligible for bounty rewards of $500 to $20,000.

"The goal of the bug bounty program is to uncover significant vulnerabilities that have a direct and demonstrable impact on the security of Microsoft's customers," said the company.

Security researchers can identify a previously unreported vulnerability that reproduces in Microsoft's latest, fully patched version of Xbox Live network and services.

Microsoft also offers similar programmes for its other services -- Microsoft Edge browser, 'Windows Insider' preview builds, Office 365, Azure Cloud.

For the Azure bug bounty programme, security researchers can earn up to $300,000.