After a long two weeks, Microsoft has finally outlined its used games policy. It’s a little bit confusing, but most used games will be able to be transferred for free.
We’ll start with sharing games with your friends – it is possible after initial thoughts that you won’t be able to. Microsoft will not charge a fee if you transfer the game to one of your friends, but you have to be on the friends friend list for at least 30 days.
To trade in a game, Microsoft has confirmed that there will be no fee charged to retailers or consumers from their first-party studio games. However, third-party publishers can elect to allow or disallow the reselling of a game, giving a game to your friend or they can even come up with entirely new terms.
Microsoft said that:
In our role as a game publisher, Microsoft Studios will enable you to give your games to friends or trade in your Xbox One games at participating retailers. Third party publishers may opt in or out of supporting game resale and may set up business terms or transfer fees with retailers.
One of the newer, cooler features of sharing though is “family access” which allows up to ten members of your family to log in and play from your shared games library on any Xbox One. It’s not quite clear how they determine who your “family” is, but the idea is that they can access all your games installed on your Xbox One and play them from their console whenever they want (as long as your console is turned on) and vise versa. I’m sure this will require a very quick internet connection from both parties though (NBN, Tony?).
