XBox One News: Marc Whitten, Chief Product Officer, talks about how digital sharing will work on Xbox One along with how you can share XBox Live Gold benefits.
Xbox One will allow you to share digital games. Marc Whitten, Chief Product Officer, has revealed what you can expect out of this anticipated feature. Everyone in your home can share digital games with each other. Your Xbox One can become your virtual game library filled with digital games that different people in the home bought. Anyone can pick any digital game on your Xbox One, sign in with their own gamertag and play - even if the owner is not signed in.
What about when you are at a friend’s house? Because your digital games go with you, you can also use and share digital games when you sign in to another console. And, if you happen to buy a digital game when you are signed in on your friend’s console, your game will also be available on your home Xbox One console for anyone to use.
In addition to sharing your games digitally, Microsoft has also revealed that you will be able to share your Xbox Live Gold benefits, officially called “Home Gold”. This will enable any Xbox Live Gold member on Xbox One to extend many Gold features to others at no additional cost. Xbox Live Gold members can extend Gold benefits including multiplayer gaming, Game DVR, SmartMatch and access to entertainment apps and experiences, including the NFL on Xbox, Skype and Internet Explorer. At home you can set up your console so that anyone who uses that console will enjoy multiplayer gaming and access to entertainment apps - even if you are not home or logged in. You can also log in at a friend’s house and everyone there can enjoy multiplayer gaming and access to entertainment apps while you are logged in.
If you are an Xbox Live Gold member an unlimited number of people can enjoy these benefits while they are using your home Xbox One console. All friends and family have to do is create their own gamertag and they will be good to go. If you have friends coming over with existing gamertags then all they have to do is sign in with their account and they will have access to online multiplayer, even if they are a Xbox Live Silver member. Even if you aren’t online your friends will still be able to take advantage of your Xbox Live Gold benefits.
When you are at a friend’s house on his Xbox One, you can log into your account and play co-op multiplayer, even if your friend is not a Gold member. Once you are logged in to your account at a friend’s house everyone that has a profile on the console can take advantage of Gold features as long as you remain logged in. Once you log out and go home then your friends won’t have access to your Xbox Live Gold features.
It should go without saying that your XBox Live Gold will transfer over from Xbox 360 to Xbox One. If you are a Gold member today then you are good to go. Once you get your Xbox One console home simply sign in to your account and you will be ready to play some games, on both Xbox 360 and Xbox One. You can even be logged in to Xbox 360 and Xbox One at the same time. It should be mentioned however that these Home Gold benefits are exclusive to Xbox One.
What do you think about these details? Clearly we still don’t know everything but it seems like “family sharing” is still alive, albeit in a modified form. Will you be picking up an Xbox One in November?