There are numerous reasons why Valve’s Steam is so popular, but one of them is probably due to its ease of use, especially when it comes to gifting games to another Steam user. Consoles never had something like this available on their platforms, although the Xbox One may have this feature added some time in its future.
Larry Hyrb held a Reddit Q&A on the site’s Xbox One subreddit, where one Reddit user asked if the next-generation console would allow them to purchase a game and gift it to a friend digitally. “Great feature we’d like to add in someday, but it won’t be there at launch,” Hyrb responded.
Earlier this year, Microsoft had outlined a feature for the Xbox One that would allow people to share their game library with their family members as part of a “Family Sharing” option. The feature had to be scrapped for now due to Microsoft lifting DRM restrictions, although hopefully having the ability to gift games to one another won’t be too complicated to implement. We’re not sure just how popular a gifting feature would be on the Xbox One, but it wouldn’t hurt to have the ability to buy your friends, family or anyone else a game they really want.
[Update: Correction. The Wii had the option to gift games to other Wii owners. Considering how limited the console’s online options are, you could see why that small detail would slip our mind.]