If you are buying digital games instead of their physical retail discs on your Xbox One, you will be glad to know that you can actually share your digital games with your friends. The game sharing of digital titles is even better than sharing your physical discs. When you share a physical disc, only one friend can play the game at a time (1 disc = 1 player). However, when you share your digital game with a friend, both of you can play the same game at the same time without any problems at all.
What is game sharing?
Game sharing is a feature on Xbox One that lets you share all your games and Xbox Live Gold with one (and only one) of your friends.
You can both game share with each other and play all the titles that are available in your digital game libraries. If you don’t know how to gameshare on Xbox One then worry not because we will explain each and every step to let you game share with your friends and vice versa.
Prerequisites
- An Xbox One console…
- A trusted Friend or Family member. (Mutual trust is required because the person sharing his games has to share his Xbox Live password or they can input it themselves on the target Xbox One)
- An Xbox Live Account.
Steps Overview
- Acquire your friend’s/family member’s account information.
- Add the new account to your Xbox One.
- Set your Xbox One as “Home Console”.
- Download your friend’s games.
1/ Acquire your friend’s/family member’s account information
This is the most important step in the whole process. You can not game-share without sharing your account information with the person you want to share your games with.
If you want to share your game with someone else then you need to share your Xbox Live email and password with the person and if you want your friend to share his/her games with you then he/she must share their email/password with you.
However, if you and your friend live close by then you can have him/her input his password on your Xbox while you do the same with him/her. The system will leave an access key, but won’t remember your password.
Once you have the account information, head over to the next step.
2/ Add the new account to your Xbox One
On the Xbox One’s home screen, open the drop-down box next to your avatar in the top-left corner.
Now select Add New and add the new email account to your Xbox One.
Sign in with your friend’s account by selecting “Choose this person” and head over to the next step.
3/ Set your Xbox One as “Home Console”
While signed into your friend’s account, head over to Settings > My Xbox > My Home Xbox and select “Make this my Home Xbox”
4/ Download your friend’s games
Once you have set the console as Home Xbox with your friend’s account. Log-out of his account and sign-in with your personal gamertag. When signed in with your own account, head over to My Games & Apps > Games and scroll to the far right. Here you will see all your friend’s games under the Ready to install section.
Select any game you want to install and let it download. You can enjoy all your friend’s digital games and vice versa.
Warnings
You have to be very careful with whom you share your personal information because your Xbox Live account comes attached with your credit card/PayPal/Xbox credit. Only share your credentials with someone you completely trust.
Don’t ever trust any random person online. Use your common sense when sharing your credentials.
You can only change “My Home Console” 3 times in a year. So be careful how many times you change the My Home Xbox otherwise you’ll end up with someone else’s console as your Home Xbox.
Extras
- All EA Access games can be shared as well. The EA Access Vault games don’t show up in the Ready to install section. You have to download the EA Access Hub and download the free games from the vault.
- Game sharing also shares your Xbox Live Gold membership.
- Both persons can play the same game at the same time.
- You can only gameshare with one person at a time.
- Once gamesharing has been completed, you and your friend can change your Xbox Live passwords. It will not affect your game sharing at all or you can just change your password to something temporary and change it back after gamesharing has been completed.
If you follow the method carefully then you can start sharing your games and Xbox Live Gold with your friend within 5 minutes. If you have any questions, feedback, or tips then do share them with us in the comments below.