Microsoft Reviewing Game Share Policy

​

​

At a recent Xbox press event there were various different matters discussed at length with Head of Programming, Mike Ybarra. From 64 person part chat to the news that they’re reviewing their game sharing policy. It’s the latter, and perhaps more interesting that we’re going to focus on here.​

Way back when during the Xbox One’s infancy game sharing was a part of Microsoft’s plan for the console. That plan quickly became just that, a plan, with nothing ever coming to fruition on the game sharing front. Of course there are ways around the issue in the form of you and a friend or family member being able to set your consoles up accordingly so that one game can be played on two separate consoles.​

However, what about the original dream of a single household or group of friends being able to share one digital copy of a game among themselves. It’s this issue that Ybarra was seemingly keen to address, stating that his team is looking into how game sharing will fit in with the Universal Windows Platform:​

So can this statement be seen as one that will focus solely on Microsoft’s wish to expand their grip on the PC gaming market further? Or does it have positive implications for console and PC gamers alike? Let us know your thoughts on this hot topic in the comments.​

Steam has a great family plan right now, we’re looking at both from a Windows standpoint – well, what’s our policy of the Windows Store? How many people can play concurrent? How do you share? We’re going to merge those two topologies soon so that a whole new model for how you share games across that will be in place. We’re actively working on that now to try to figure [it out], but we want to get to a much simpler model and potentially one that lets you do more… have a little bit more freedom in what you can and can’t do.​

​

So can this statement be seen as one that will focus solely on Microsoft’s wish to expand their grip on the PC gaming market further? Or does it have positive implications for console and PC gamers alike? Let us know your thoughts on this hot topic in the comments.​