Xbox GameShare is a feature on Xbox consoles that allows gamers to share digital games with friends. With the press of a button, you can give your friends instant access to play any game in your library, even if they don’t own it. Xbox GameShare also lets you team up and play with your friends online, regardless of whether you are in the same room or not. This feature is perfect for gamers who want to beat tough levels or just have some fun with friends.
Here’s how it works: you can either buy a game that’s GameShare-enabled, or you can share one of your owned games with a friend. Your friend then has to download the game to their console or PC, and they’ll be able to play it just as if they had purchased it themselves.
Let’s find out how GameShare works, what the prerequisites are to make it work, and whether it has any significant limitations.
What is Xbox GameShare?
Xbox GameShare allows gamers to share digital games with a friend. Once you have enabled GameShare on your Xbox, you will be able to see all of the digital games owned by your friend. You can then choose to download any of those games to your own console.
Xbox GameShare is also a neat feature to share the cost of a single Game Pass or Xbox Live Gold subscription with one of your friends.
It’s a great way to try out new games before you buy them. And to play multiplayer games with your friends.
What are the requirements for Xbox GameShare?
Xbox GameShare requires the following conditions to be met before you can start sharing games and subscriptions with a friend:
- You and your friend own an Xbox One model or Xbox Series S/X console
- One of you owns a subscription to Xbox Live
With these conditions met, you can move on to setting up GameShare.
How to set up Xbox GameShare?
Before you set up Xbox GameShare, you need to know the concept of a ‘home Xbox’. Your home Xbox is the Xbox that doesn’t require your Xbox Live profile to be signed in. Only one account can claim the home Xbox status for a particular console at a time.
What the following process does is designate your friend’s Xbox as your ‘home Xbox’ so that they can gain access to your game library and any subscriptions you have purchased.
Setting up Xbox GameShare is relatively simple. Here’s how to do it:
- On your friend’s Xbox, select the profile icon at the top left of your screen
- Navigate to the user account menu and select Add New
- Add your Xbox account to the console. Your friend’s Xbox now has the details of both your and your friend’s Xbox accounts.
- You now need to make your friend’s Xbox your ‘home Xbox’. Navigate to Settings > Personalize or Settings > General > Personalization, depending on whether the console is an Xbox One or Xbox Series S/X.
- Select My home Xbox and then select Make this my home Xbox. Your friend will now be able to access all your games and your Game Pass and Xbox Live subscriptions.
- To access your friend’s games and subscriptions, repeat the same steps on your own Xbox.
Restrictions for Xbox GameShare
There are a few limitations to Xbox GameShare. The most significant one is that you can only switch your home console a maximum of five times per year. This is done to prevent abuse of the feature. Hence, you need to choose your GameShare partner carefully.
You can also not share in-game currency, items, pre-order bonuses, and other account-specific items.
And lastly, you can set up GameShare with only one other console at a time. So you can’t keep adding friends to your GameShare list. The feature is limited to just one friend at a time.
Wrapping Up
Xbox GameShare is a great feature for Xbox consoles and perhaps one of the most influential when it comes to choosing between Xbox and PlayStation. You can save costs by buying games only once and sharing them with a trusted friend.
What’s more, you can even share subscriptions like Game Pass and Xbox Live to make the deal even sweeter. Make sure to choose wisely as you don’t have unlimited opportunities to switch your home Xbox.
