Remember the thrill of trading video game discs with your next-door neighbor growing up? You can now re-live that same thrill with a little-known Xbox One, Xbox One X, and Xbox Series S|X feature called Gameshare.
Want to learn how to set up Gameshare on your Xbox to share games with your friends? Read our easy-to-follow Xbox Help Guide and we’ll show you how.
In This Guide:
What is “Game Share” on Xbox?
The Game Share feature for Xbox lets you share your Xbox digital game library of purchased games and other Xbox Live/Xbox Game Pass Ultimate services with one other console.
Setup is simple and maintaining the ability to share games is even easier, but there is a catch.
In order to mutually share games, it requires both individuals to keep the other person’s Xbox console as their Home Console in the Xbox One Settings.
As soon as this is removed on either console, the person who reset their Home Console will no longer be sharing their games with the other person.
With this in mind, it’s clear Microsoft’s original intentions were for gamers to use this within a single household.
Please be aware you may be denied support if you share account information with other people, which is a violation of Microsoft’s ToS.
How to Game Share on Xbox One
There are a few things that you’ll need to do to implement game sharing on Xbox One.
Follow the steps and let us know in the comment section if you run into any issues or follow different steps than what we have listed below:
Step 1 – Sign In With Your Microsoft Account
The first thing you have to do to enable Xbox One Game Share is to sign in with your Microsoft Account on the Xbox One console you want to share games with.
- Press your Xbox Home Button on your Xbox One Controller
- Scroll over to the ‘Profile‘ menu
- Select ‘Sign-in’
- Sign in using the account you would like to share games from
If you’re signing in around friends, family, or in a public area, we highly recommend using the Microsoft Xbox Mobile App to avoid prying eyes, and also following Xbox One Security Best Practices to help keep your account safe.
The good thing about using the Xbox App is that it will keep your password encoded on screen while you are typing it on your mobile device which again, avoids any type of risky security behavior in these situations.
As always, you have 2-factor authentication set up for ALL of your personal devices at all time.
Step 2 – Set Xbox One as Home Console
Next, you’ll need to set the Xbox One you’re signing in to as your Home Console. Wondering how to set an Xbox One as your home console?
- Press the Xbox Home button
- Navigate to Settings > Personalization > My Home Console
- Make Xbox One your home console
You can only set one Xbox One as a home console. It’s not possible to use Xbox One game share between 3 consoles.
It’s also important to know that Microsoft limits the number of times you can set your home console to 5 times per year (they updated this in 2019 from 3 times per year!), so make sure you use your home console resets wisely.
Step 3 – Log Out of GameShare Account, Log In to Other Account
After setting up gameshare, in order to download the games now available in your digital game library, you’ll need to log out of the account you used to set up game share, and log in to the account you want to download games on.
We also recommend doing this for security reasons, as whoever is using the console would have access to that account if you keep it logged in on your console.
Step 4 – Reset Your Xbox One Password
Just to be safe, we recommend resetting your Microsoft Account password. This will prevent whoever you shared your games with from signing in to your account and seeing sensitive personal information.
This will not impact Xbox One game share. As long as you don’t set the Home Console for that Microsoft Account on a different Xbox One, you’ll be able to continue using Game Share.
Removing Game Share from Your Xbox One
It’s fairly simple to remove game share on Xbox One, and you don’t need access to the console you originally shared games with to do it.
- Sign in on your own console, not the console you’ve game shared with
- Press the Xbox Button
- Navigate to System > Settings > General > Personalization menu
- Select “My Home Xbox”
- Select “Make this my home Xbox”
This makes your Xbox the Home Xbox for your account. You will no longer be able to share your digital Xbox game library with the person you originally shared games with (aka, the console you originally signed in on).
What Can You Share with Xbox One Game Share?
Game Share allows you to share quite a few different digital downloads and subscriptions – more than we had originally anticipated! Here’s the list:
What Can’t You Share with Xbox One Game Share?
Unfortunately, there are a few items that you can’t share via Xbox One Gameshare, but the list is pretty small!
- Items that were purchased in-game, with in-game currency
- In-game currency cannot be shared
- Unique and one-time bonus, pre-order items, etc.
The list of things you can’t share is probably what you would expect. Have you seen anything else that you’re able to share or not share that you were expecting to be able to?
Why is my Xbox One Game Share no longer working?
The number one reason your Xbox One gameshare might have stopped working is that the person who was sharing with you has reset their home console to a different Xbox One.
You could also be experiencing issues with Xbox One game share if you don’t have access to the internet.
As a word of caution, you will not be able to access your Home Console game downloads if you don’t have access to the internet.
But, you can still play the games owned by the account who has that Xbox set as their home console.
You can read more Xbox repair guides, troubleshooting articles, or tutorials or visit XboxDIY on YouTube for additional content.
We hope this article helped you set up gameshare for your Xbox One. What experiences did you have with game sharing? Were you surprised by what you could share, or couldn’t? We would love to hear from you! Drop a comment below or head over to our Contact page for any questions. Game on!
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