Microsoft is looking into Digital Game Sharing options

Xbox’s Mike Ybarra has been chatting recently about the options available for game sharing on Xbox One and Windows 10 devices and the possibility of digital game sharing being overhauled in the near future.

“Steam has a great family plan right now. We’re looking at both from a Windows standpoint – well, what’s our policy of the Windows Store? How many people can play concurrent? How do you share? We’re going to merge those two topologies soon so that a whole new model for how you share games across that will be in place. We’re actively working on that now to try to figure [it out], but we want to get to a much simpler model and potentially one that lets you do more… have a little bit more freedom in what you can and can’t do.”

The process in place for game sharing at the moment is directed towards family sharing within the one premises, clearly though this system is not limited to that as many game share with friends and family members in different countries. This is not a simple process though and requires you to log into the other Xbox One with your email and password or hand it over to the person with whom you are game sharing with. Once you both have each other’s profiles on both consoles you then need to make the second console your home console.

This works quite well for many however handing over passwords is not at all recommended and there are restrictions placed on what you can then play offline. If your home console is not set to your actual console you cannot play any of your digital games offline. This can be quite frustrating if you are travelling, services are down or your internet is disrupted.

The benefits of game sharing have not yet been completely realize on the Xbox One so it’s great to hear that Microsoft are actively working on this.