As you probably saw on Friday while we were celebrating Women’s Day by not working at all, Microsoft has made some changes to how Xbox Live works on the Xbox One. You’ll now now longer require multiple Xbox Live Gold accounts on one console just to play online; buy just one Xbox Live Gold subscription and anybody playing on your console will have access to most of Gold’s features.
"So how it works is, on your console, anybody else on the console, whether it’s a babysitter that’s come over or a friend or your family, can participate in all the experiences like they’re on Gold," Xbox chief product officer Marc Whitten told Polygon. "It’s with their gamertag so they’re not on your gamertag, you don’t even have to be there, they’re not messing up your gamerscore or your storage or your queues or anything like that. It’s their full account experience, but it really gets to take full advantage of many of the Gold features."
That’s actually pretty cool; right now I take advantage of Xbox Live’s now-discontinued Family Pack, which gives me 4 gold accounts for less than the price of two – so my eldest kid and the wife can play online and enjoy Gold’s media features as well. On the Xbox One, I’ll actually be saving money – so I can’t be too upset. It’s not all good though; Xbox Home Gold will only be available on the Xbox One; it won’t work that way on the Xbox 360 at all.
It gets a little worse.To ready their system for the change, my family pack accounts will at the end of this month be converted to fully-fledged, individual Xbox Live gold accounts. If I want to keep my family online on the 360 in future, I’ll have to shell out for 3 whole Gold accounts. We’re getting 3 months of Xbox Live credited to our accounts, which is a nice gesture – but having to shell out thrice for something I’ve been getting. The change also unfortunately kills off the ability to monitor child accounts, and gift MS points – so it’ll be harder, as a parent, to keep the kid’s gaming in check.
The change kicks in at the end of this month – and it also heralds the end of Microsoft points forever. When the dash update goes live, MS Points will be replaced with your local currency.
Still, the good far outweighs the bad. I especially like that I can go over to a mate who doesn’t have Xbox Live Gold, and while I’m logged in with my account on his console, he’ll have access to almost all of Gold’s features – along with my digital library of games..pretty much just like it is on the 360 right now.
Last Updated: August 12, 2013
Mehbro
August 12, 2013 at 09:19
moan…moan…groan..moan…groan..buys Xbox One.
Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim
August 12, 2013 at 09:33
I sure as hell; will be buying an Xbone.
Airborne
August 12, 2013 at 09:58
Like you have a choice, Timster… gonna be hard to review a game if you aint gotta da tools?
PS4 for me…
FoxOneZA - X-Therminator
August 12, 2013 at 09:22
There’s no need for MS to go on and re-tool the Xbox 360’s policies. At this rate the Xbox 360 will go away very very quick.
DrKiller
August 12, 2013 at 09:34
Just like Windows 98 and Windows Vista 🙂
Hammersteyn
August 12, 2013 at 09:38
Windows Vista……. *shivers*
Vince
August 12, 2013 at 12:34
Windows Vista… shiver again will you.
Umar Kiiroi Senk?
August 12, 2013 at 09:29
I still wonder how Gold will be shape up against PSN +, XLive is obviously the better online experience, but PSN + has better features. Hopefully PSN will get it’s online experience up to standard.
Hammersteyn
August 12, 2013 at 09:31
What’s the difference in regards to the online experience between the two for you? I never had the pleasure of going online with a 360 🙁
Umar Kiiroi Senk?
August 12, 2013 at 09:38
Well there is the cross game chat and it’s much of the experience is more streamlined, people have stated that it is more stable but I haven’t really experienced this. it’s just a smoother ride kinda, you have to try it and see for yourself. but this is for the pure MP guys. other than that, there is nothing Gold offers that really justifies the price
Hammersteyn
August 12, 2013 at 09:43
That’s exactly what I have heard and read. After my first PS3 broke after about five years of loyal service I was pondering buying a XBOX. It was cheaper and I could try those exclusives that has eluded the PS. But loyalty overcame me so I bought a second PS and signed up to PS+ just to store my saved games online. But only then did I realize that PS+ releases free games every month. I’ve never been happier to own a PS3 since then.
Umar Kiiroi Senk?
August 12, 2013 at 09:48
indeed, it has decent discounts too. but the free games are a huge hook though..well worth the price
HellHound1ZA
August 12, 2013 at 13:47
Except those games will never truley be yours, if by some twist of fate you stop paying for the PS+ subscription those games are gone, untill you pay for your PS+ subs again. The nice thing with the Xbox is when we get free games, it’s ours, regardless if your gold runs out and your account reverts to a silver account. Yes we get older games but at least they’re ours, and they belong to us for as long as the profile is active and has not been deleted. You will always be able to play those games you downloaded on the 360 so when you think about it Gold is totally worth its weight in salt.
Hammersteyn
August 12, 2013 at 14:06
But why would I want to stop paying. The library goes over as is to the PS4. So I will have these rental games for at least eight more years. More than enough time to draw the last bit of fun out of them.
Lacerz
August 12, 2013 at 18:47
You’ll need your PS3 to access that library though. The PS4 isn’t backwards compatible, which includes digital games. Not that it’s an issue. I have two PS3s and I won’t be getting rid of them. No point. They work as a Blu-ray player and a video streamer, so they’re quite functional.
RinceThisandholiday
August 12, 2013 at 10:37
I hear with the current PSN you sometimes get free games too… Trololo!
Hammersteyn
August 12, 2013 at 09:29
Four Gold Accounts??? You need four separate accounts just to play online? FOUR? You don’t need any subscription based accounts to play online with the PS3. That and a family of four needs one PS+ account and all four would have access to a game that’s been downloaded. How the hell did people find the gall to defend the XBOX 360 online policies? Only now do I realize how much better it’s been on the PS. Though it’s gonna change for the PS4
Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim
August 12, 2013 at 09:33
Nah, you could bring in “guests” to play online – but they wouldn;t be playing on their own profiles. And in next gen, it switches a bit; you’ll need multiple Ps+ accounts for multiplayer, and just one Xbox one Gold account on the bone.
Hammersteyn
August 12, 2013 at 09:37
Like I said, it’s gonna change for the PS4. It’s been a good run though. a Very good run.
Lacerz
August 12, 2013 at 18:49
You won’t need multiple PS+ accounts to play online. Just like Home Gold, the PS4 will let you designate one console as the family console where only one account will be required to have Plus in order to play online. This was announced back in June.
Just Google “One PlayStation Plus Account on PS4 Will Allow Other Accounts to Play Online on Same Console”. It even has a link to Shuhei Yoshida’s tweet addressing it.
Martin du preez
August 12, 2013 at 09:35
“Hey dude we should like totally order some pizza hut”
“I don’t have XBL gold brah”
“Duuude,check this out”
*Logs in on his account*
“OMF we be eating like kings tonight!”
Alien Emperor Trevor
August 12, 2013 at 09:42
So the subscription is essentially linked to the console & not a user account? That’s a good idea.
Exalted Overlord Geoffrey Tim
August 12, 2013 at 09:49
It’s linked to both; the originating console, as well as the “primary” gamertag – so youi can go to a mate and sign in with your profile and you’ll be on gold.
RinceThisandholiday
August 12, 2013 at 10:38
I think that’s actually a cool concept.
Sir Rants-a-Lot Llew
August 12, 2013 at 11:06
That’s a pretty cool feature actually. What does bug me is why they are removing family account options for the 360. Yes, I understand they want to push people to buy the XBoxOne so they can save cash but surely forcing a change that so drastically affects someone is not good PR at all?
A tad bit scummy to do this on the 360 but I guess this is a business and they want to sell more XBones so yeah. At least the Bone is starting to look a lot better than it was 2 months ago!
Guest
August 12, 2013 at 17:01
I’m curious as to how the change from ms points to local currency will affect those of us with UK live accounts. Would we be credited in pounds? Will it detect our location and convert our accounts to SA accounts? Will we be able to buy prepaid cards which would give you credit instead of points similar to psn vouchers? Does anyone know the details around this?
Pieter Kruger
August 12, 2013 at 17:21
I got credited in pounds and my account is still UK!
Guest
August 12, 2013 at 17:51
Nice. That’s good to here. Had a quick look at my account and my points haven’t yet been converted over. Granted, it’s only about 100-ish points so I wouldn’t be able to buy much anyway.
I hope they start selling monetary value xbox live vouchers as I don’t feel comfortable saving my credit card on their servers. I’ll ping evopoints on twitter and report back later.
Lacerz
August 12, 2013 at 18:42
If you go over to a friend’s house and log into your account on his Xbox One, you’ll be able to play your digital content online, but your friend will not be able to access your content and play online UNLESS he plays your account or you make his console your Home Gold console. You would need to link his console to your account. This would make your digital content at home inaccessible by anyone trying to play from your house, unless they were logging in on your account.
Frankly, I prefer the way Sony has done it with the current gen. I can assign two consoles to my PSN account, which has PS+, and those two consoles can contain my digital content (well… within the limits of the HDD) and any user can play them, even if they don’t have PS+. The PS4 will be the same way, but just like Home Gold, you can only designate one console to share on.
I miss the old PS3 days where you could share with 5 consoles.
drd7of14
August 13, 2013 at 20:12
So….It’s just like Playstation Plus has been, and will be, for the past 2-3 years?
eXtremis
August 20, 2013 at 01:43
I can play all the multiplayer I want on my Steam account for free. I really do think MS has it backwards.
JoeD
September 1, 2013 at 22:05
Guess you’ll have to learn how to parent all by yourself without Microsoft’s help. Good luck.
Melting Granite
December 26, 2013 at 20:10
$100 a year for Xbox One Home Gold, and it really hasn’t been well explained, and they gloss over the parts that make it a worse service than the Family Pack for the 360.
As usual, they are going for increased profits while screwing the user, and packaging it up in a dizzying array of doublespeak to make people THINK they are getting more.
The Gold Family Pack on Xbox 360 DID benefit consumers, but it also benefited MS. It was much easier to justify buying the kids their own consoles when you didn’t have to shell out for an entire new Gold account. MS gave us bonus Gold accounts under the Family Pack, we bought more consoles, more games, more stupid downloadable t-shirts for our avatars (at $3 a pop that no one else ever notices).
So both sides benefited — for a couple of years. Now the idea behind introducing Family Pack comes to fruition, which is to solely benefit MS. Now that everyone has their extra consoles, and their other family members have the gamer tags and accounts, MS kills the Family Pack. Now if you want to continue Gold for everyone who was on the Family Pack, it’s back to full-priced individual accounts.
I’m not saying this as a PS3 fanboy. I have a PS3 and an Xbox 360, and I have used my PS3 once in the past 9 months, just to watch a .M2TS movie I had on a USB stick. The 360 is by far my console of choice.
In the PS2 vs. Xbox days, I was a PS2 user by far over XBox. I go with whatever is better for me. And I can say that I have 2 brand new, unopened Xbox One consoles ready to ship back to Microsoft today or tomorrow. Just waiting for the MS Store to call me back. It’s great when you call in and the give you an option where they will call you back so you don’t have to wait on hold. They were going to call me back within 14 minutes; that was 30 minutes ago.