Microsoft reveals more on Home Gold for the Xbox One, enables sharing games and benefits

By George Ponder
last updated

Microsoft has posted details on how you will be able to share digital games on your Xbox One console as well as well as outlining the new Home Gold feature for Xbox Live Gold members that will let you share your membership benefits with others..

Marc Whitten, Chief Product Officer at Microsoft, explains that everyone in your home can share digital games with each other. The Xbox One will become a gaming library filled with the titles that different players in the house have purchased. Any player can select any digital game on the Xbox One console, sign in with their gamertag and play.

Additionally, you can share digital games when you are signed into another console and any games purchased on that console will also be available on your home Xbox One console.

As far as Xbox Live Gold is concerned, you will have a new benefit called Home Gold. Home Gold will enable any Xbox Live Gold member on Xbox One to extend many of the Gold membership features to others at no additional cost. Benefits including multiplayer gaming, Game DVR, SmartMatch and access to apps and experiences.

When at home, you can set up your Xbox One home console so anyone who uses that console will enjoy multiplayer gaming and access to entertainment apps regardless if you are logged in or not. Friends and family can create their own account and gamertag and enjoy these features. If they already have a gamertag, all they will need to do is log in and start playing.

While on the go you can log into a friend's console and everyone there can enjoy mutliplayer gaming and access to entertainment apps while you are logged in. Even if your friend isn't a Xbox Live Gold member, once you log into the console they will have access to these features.

If you are currently an Xbox Live Gold member on the Xbox 360, your membership will seamlessly be transferred to the Xbox One. You will still have access to your Gold benefits on either console but Home Gold benefits are exclusively for the Xbox One.

Source: Xbox Wire (opens in new tab) via: MajorNelson (opens in new tab); Thanks, nathan, for the tip!

George Ponder
George Ponder

George is the Reviews Editor at Windows Central, concentrating on Windows 10 PC and Mobile apps. He's been a supporter of the platform since the days of Windows CE and uses his current Windows 10 Mobile phone daily to keep up with life and enjoy a game during down time.

46 Comments
  • The one is sounding better and better :) cant wait!
  • +ONE
  • +BEYOND!
  • Love it
  • I still miss the whole I can sign in on any Xbox with my gamertag and access my digital purchases. Bring that feature back!!!! 
     
  • Read the article on Major Nelson.
    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
  • Yeah what he said
  • Okay my mistake. I thought they had got rid of that. Or maybe it was if I bought a physical copy of a game and downloaded it.
  • It is on the text, read the original source.
  • You can already do this with the 360 too...
  • One is the one for me....
  • You will be mine soon!
  • Home Run, anyone..? @_@
  • I'm glad Microsoft is bringing this feature back (or a similar version of the cloud game library). I wonder if the same people who thought that the original policy was bad will now praise the return of this...
  • Only One will triumph
  • Meh, I'm still for the ps4. 
  • This sounds like what they already announced... By the way with all the announcements I feel like the may release the Xbox next month.
  • It probably won't be until October at the earliest.
  • "There can only be One highlander!"
    Seriously, this is good news if it represents the ability for me to share my game library with a few friends and vice versa, so long as we're all on each other's approved friend list for this feature. Correct me if my understanding is wrong on this.
  • I think that feature is out, and what replaced it is your games will work for anybody logged in on the same console that your profile has most recently logged in to.
  • It's getting more palatable now. I might just not cancel my X1 preorder after all.
  • The Home Gold is what is needed. I wonder if it will work, well, with XBmusic.
  • It would be intresting if they adopt sonys approach, where currently on ps3 a digital store game or content can be active on only two consoles. Meaning if you were on your friends ps3 and bought a game from the digital store, its active on his console (but tied to your psn) and if you download it on your own, its now active on your console. However if you logged in another friends ps3 you can no longer download it, you will need to deactivate one of the active ps3s...( Previously you were limited to 5 consoles) BUT to deactivate you have to deactivate your psn account on the ps3 you wish to deactivate (you can no longer do it remotely, you can only deactivate your psn on all active ps3s tied to your account.. Remotely).
  • On Xbox 360 you can "share" a game with another gamertag, You can buy the game in another console with your gamertag and the game will be available to any account in that console (even if off-line), and you can play that game in yor console if you are online with your gamertag.
  • Microsoft licensing works differently. Anyone can play on the primary console and YOU but only you can play your stuff on any other console.
  • Well put. This more or less describes the whole article in one sentence. Thanks!
  • That sounds like a lot of work. I think the way it is now on the 360 is better.
  • Strange that there is a lot less activity in the comments of positive Xbox One news.
  • Didn't you know it's trendy to hate on the unreleased Xbox one now.
  • Wow so they put this feature back I knew it couldn't be that hard to put back in the traditional non DRM system awesome so happy now I think I really am going to get this!
  • Today, on the 360, if I buy a game, anybody on that console can use it (Gold, Silver, even non-Xbox Live "local-only" accounts).  I can also go to any Xbox 360 and download and play that same game, so long as I'm signed in with my Gamertag to Xbox Live.  That's unchanged.
     
    What's new is that any account on my home console can now share my Gold access, so all other accounts in my family can access all the Gold features.  That's good (though I hope they have some strict parental controls on that; I don't want my six-year-old on Xbox Live just yet).
     
    On the down side, the Gold Family plan is gone.  Right now, I can share my Gold Family plan with three other members of my family, and we all have Gold access not just on our primary console, but anywhere.  Now, if I want my older kids to be able to have Gold access on any and all consoles they sign in on, they have to have their own Gold accounts.  And, unless they back-port this feature to the 360, without the Gold Family plan, they're going to lose Gold access on the 360 as well.
  • Was typing my post as you posted.  I hope they find a solution for the 360.  My gold account is passcoded and my kids' are not.  I don't want to give them my passcode just so they can watch Netflix on it.
  • Unfortunately, the article on Major Nelson's blog includes this sentence:  "Home Gold benefits are exclusively for Xbox One."  Looks like my kids are going to be losing their Gold access on the 360, because like you, I don't want to pay for multiple subscriptions.
     
    As to your point on Netflix, this is exactly why my wife made me get a Blu-ray player that had Netflix access -- so she wouldn't have to sign the kids in to my profile just so they could watch a movie.
  • Good thing I have a couple of PS3s...
  • We still need to be able to have at least 2 Home Gold Consoles so that I can play games in the living room and the wife can watch netflix on the other (and vice versa depending on the situation).  Or just remove the streaming apps from gold paywall - that would fix the problem too.
  • So I just got an email saying my family gold account will be converted to individual gold accounts at the end of the month.  Each account will be Gold up to the current expiration date of the family gold plan plus 3 bonus months.  Although the home gold feature replaces the family plan on the Xbox One, does anyone know if the home gold will be available on the 360?  I would hate to have to buy 4 gold accounts every year just for the 360.
  • and that obviously tells you you "should" get a Xbox One, which is the point of this feature being Xbox One only. remember, even though 360 willbe still supported... Microsoft want people to go to Xbox One.
  • So they are keeping the Gold sharing feature?
  • The way Microsoft has removed, changed and modified features, this console is almost completely different from what they introduced back in May. All I need is a kinect-less version and I'm in.
  • Cool. Except no one else uses my Xbox and I don't use anyone else Xbox so... useless. Even the people I live with will have their own One.
  • With this move, they're telling me not to buy a separate Xbox One for my son, because then I'll have to pay for another Xbox Live Gold account for him. I currently have my girlfriend and my mother on my family account, which will convert to four separate Xbox Live Gold accounts.
    Microsoft is screwing people who buy more than one console to give more features to people who buy only one console.
    The more I think about it, the more I think I will skip Xbox altogether and buy a Roku for my main TV.
  • This is great news, they've introduced almost all the stuff they removed when they went back on the original DRM stuff, the only thing missing now is loaning digital games to friends and selling digital games, which I don't really care about anyway.
     
    Now if they'd just name a launch date so I can preorder knowing I'll be in the country to receive the package.
  • Actually the sharing/selling digital games to friends would have been far more useful than this.
  • Think I may just build a gaming PC and use my surface pro for other PC needs. Consoles don't have the attraction they used to and a properly built alienware rig will outperform the one /ps4 all day. With services like steam and products like the oculus rift you could argue that consoles are really unnecessary especially now that the majority of console titles are available on PC. Food for thought
  • Except I can buy 4 XB1 and a solid TV for the cost of your Alienware Rig. PC Gamers use the build a better rig comment a lot and no one ever says they can piece together a better rig than a console for under the price they are selling the console for and even once its built PC's are far less reliable than Consoles (I've gone thru 3 computers (1Desktop and two Laptops) since my 1 and only RROD)
    Also Oculus Rift will not be exclusive to the PC. I know It is now but I wouldn't be surprised if they have console support in the next couple of years if not sooner. Lastly in my opinion that technology is great only until Illumiroom comes out. That piece of tech excites me more than the Oculus Rift and I have a Dev Kit for the O.R. currently at my house and its pretty slick.
     
  • I have a 2 Questions/Observations about having two consoles in one house. If everybody on one console can have the benefits of the one primary account what stops me from being the primary Gold account holder on both X1. The 2nd thought is since the Kinect recognizes the person who is using the X1 do you think that the parental controls will be binded to the Individual's XBL Account and allow for two consoles to have one XBL Gold Account? Even if I have to buy 2 gold accounts instead of 4 Im still better off buying Gold Accounts for both X1's but the question is a valid one..