Xbox One Family Sharing detailed (good news for sites like this!)

Microsoft has detailed the family sharing function of the Xbox One in a recent interview....

"I do think that sharing in a family group is an important part of the positives in our ecosystem today…You don’t have to send in your birth certificate. You define what a family unit is and the people who connect to you and how that library works"

The “Family Sharing” option allows ten members of a “family unit” to freely share their game library anywhere they are, even across different Xbox One consoles. here’s the relevant paragraph from the official policy:

"Xbox One will enable new forms of access for families. Up to ten members of your family can log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. Just like today, a family member can play your copy of Forza Motorsport at a friend’s house. Only now, they will see not just Forza, but all of your shared games.  You can always play your games, and any  of your family members can be playing from your shared library at a given time."


So this basically means we could start groups of ten here and share all of out games as a unit which frankly is a cracking idea from M$ there!

I wont have to buy a game again, I can play you games Tom #imatheivingpikey

not a bad idea #iamalsoathievingpikey

OT yeah this is good news but does this mean if i buy CoD that everyone else can play it at the same time? Or just that if I'm not playing it then someone else can?

Was wondering the same thing. It does say 'any of your family' could be playing a game and you can too. But it does say 'all' can play. M$ must have limits,otherwise if 10 of us got together we'd only have to pay about 3 quid a game. Again more info needed.

Very impressive idea if I may say so myself

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm i may be inundated with family requests lol

bal wrote:does this mean if i buy CoD that everyone else can play it at the same time? Or just that if I'm not playing it then someone else can?

Definitely not the first one - only one member of your family can be playing it at a time. So if I'm borrowing your copy, Slowdog can't be borrowing your copy at the same time. Meaning games like CoD will be relatively unaffected, but something like Mass Effect? If I buy it, I'll be playing it a lot for 3 or 4 days. After that I'll probably have finished it, so you can play it pretty much whenever you want. So as long as you're happy to wait a week or some after release, there's no reason for you to buy it.

They still haven't really clarified whether we all have to have the same people in our family though. For example, could I have 8 people from here (including Slowdog) in my family, plus 2 real life friends, then Slowdog has 10 people from here in his family? Or does his family have to be the exact same as mine? If it's the latter then this is really more suited to communities like ours.

Dont forget folks you have to name the 10 family members. I could be wrong but I dont THINK you can change the 10 once youve chosen them - else everyone would just rape the system. Theres also the chance that this (like the resale of games) will be at publishers discretion. IE they may be given the option to OPT out of this... not saying it is.. just saying maybe

HomerRamone2084 wrote:Theres also the chance that this (like the resale of games) will be at publishers discretion. IE they may be given the option to OPT out of this... not saying it is.. just saying maybe

That's complete speculation not based on anything MS have said. Yes, it could be true, but it seems more like you've decided to get a PS and are taking any possible chance to try and get in a dig at MS.

Come now gents - who gives two fucks what bit of plastic plays ya games - its all about the games themselves

Regardless of the restrictions this is still a fantastic feature and gives me new hope that M$ are still committed to the gamers

This has now been canned.

As has the DRM and 24 hour check in