10 "Family" Share Feature

[TeknoBlast]

I found this very interesting and first heard about it, I thought all ten "family" members has to be on the same physical box. Then I found this: Xbox One Lets You Share Your Games With Up To 10 "Family" Members

So the way I understand this is like this.

I own BF4. #1 of my 10 friends can access my BF4 game and so can I, so we can game together. Friend #2 wants to access my BF4 also....#2 cant since #1 already is playing. #2 friend has to wait, get his own copy of BF4, or use a shared BF4 game from his 1 of 10 friends.

If this is true, this is a very killer feature and MS needs to be more clear on what this means.

 

[Coreldan]

Few things about this though..

1) it's very likely that if the family has one copy of a game, only one person can play it simultaneously, as your whole 10 person family can't all play that one copy of BF4 together at the same time. I'd be pretty sure that you are included as well, so I would say it won't be you + 1 family member, but just one person total.
2) The "family" might be dictated by fe. sharing a payment method, which might make it iffy to have your friend share your CC detail or something like this..

 

[martinmc78]

Yeah its a pretty cool feature although I think only one person can play on that game at any one time - the way im looking at it at the moment with one of my friends that lives in the states is we both get different games and share them - hes 6 hours behind me so I can play in the evening when I get home from work for about 5 hours before he gets home and will come online to play. Playing together would be an issue but for multiplayer games like BF4 and Halo were more than likely to get a copy each for the weekend sessions

 

[ncxcstud]

This article from Ars Technia does a good job in explaining some things, what I find most important is the sidebar info (which I've quoted here)...

Microsoft defends the Xbox One’s licensing, used game policies | Ars Technica

[h=3]It's a "family" affair[/h]Since its announcement, there has been some confusion over the details of sharing your Xbox One game library with up to ten "family members." Mehdi couldn't give comprehensive details but he did clarify some things.
For one, a family member doesn't have to be a "blood relative," he said, eliminating the extremely unlikely possibility that the Xbox One would include a built-in blood testing kit. For another, they don't have to live in the primary owner's house—I could name a friend that lives 3,000 miles away as one of my "family members" Mehdi said.
You'll be able to link other Xbox Live accounts as having shared access to your library when you first set up a system, and will also be able to add them later on (though specific details of how you manage these relationships is still not being discussed). The only limitation, it seems, is that only one person can be playing the shared copy of a single game at any given time. All in all, this does sound like a pretty convenient feature that's more workable than simply passing discs around amongst friends who are actually in your area.

 

[TeknoBlast]

Few things about this though..

1) it's very likely that if the family has one copy of a game, only one person can play it simultaneously, as your whole 10 person family can't all play that one copy of BF4 together at the same time. I'd be pretty sure that you are included as well, so I would say it won't be you + 1 family member, but just one person total.
2) The "family" might be dictated by fe. sharing a payment method, which might make it iffy to have your friend share your CC detail or something like this..

I know, this is what I said in my post. Only one "family" member can have access to my game at a time, plus myself. So it's myself and one "family" member. If another family member wants to play the same game, then he/she has to wait for the current "family" member to stop playing.

 

[Coreldan]

I didn't however say that. My guess was that you are also counted as the family member, but I think the more simple way of saying it is that I think that only one person will be playing a single copy simultaneously. As in, not you + 1 family member, just you OR 1 family member I don't think the "plus myself" has been stated anywhere. While the statements can be interpreted a bit widely, I think you are in for a disappointment.

EDIT: @My pastor friend: Good find, thanks for sharing, looks really good cos I have a handful of friends looking at the X1, would be great to share the library.

 

[Storl]

I didn't however say that. My guess was that you are also counted as the family member, but I think the more simple way of saying it is that I think that only one person will be playing a single copy simultaneously. As in, not you + 1 family member, just you OR 1 family member I don't think the "plus myself" has been stated anywhere. While the statements can be interpreted a bit widely, I think you are in for a disappointment.

EDIT: @My pastor friend: Good find, thanks for sharing, looks really good cos I have a handful of friends looking at the X1, would be great to share the library.

Yeah but think about it, very annoying at the same time, say you wanna play Watch Dogs (^^) but your friend is playing it right now through your shared library.. you end up getting a nice warning "Can't play this right now because it's being used by X" not a nice scenario really, so it really needs to be seen first to understand what the family plan really is, if it comes with such a straight restrictions i would think twice before sharing my games with anyone, i want to play my games when i want, being unable to play because someone else is playing your game right now is not nice at all.

 

[tk-093]

Yeah but think about it, very annoying at the same time, say you wanna play Watch Dogs (^^) but your friend is playing it right now through your shared library.. you end up getting a nice warning "Can't play this right now because it's being used by X" not a nice scenario really, so it really needs to be seen first to understand what the family plan really is, if it comes with such a straight restrictions i would think twice before sharing my games with anyone, i want to play my games when i want, being unable to play because someone else is playing your game right now is not nice at all.

Yeah, I wonder if you are the main person on the account if you can bump that person off. I bet you can.

 

[Coreldan]

Indeed, that will be the inconveniency with it. Me and my friends would definitely work out a "owner priority" system, so that the owner has the priority if more than one are trying to play it. Chances are that this "owner priority" might be already built in to the family-system so that the non-owners get a few minutes to wrap up their game before they get booted out.

But I think one needs to look at the big picture of it all:

Let's say you have those 10 friends in the family, of which everyone owns 10 games. This gives you the access to 100 games. So lets say you've paid for 600€ worth of games, but you have access to 6000€ worth of games. This is a frigging HUGE thing/gain, so I think the 1 player per game at one time is quite a reasonable requirement, but I do hope that the owner gets the priority. After all they did buy the game.

 

[ncxcstud]

the good thing (if you can bump people off) your game never really 'ends' so it effectively 'saves' where you left off. Your friend leaves you get right back to where you were before. That's awesome

 

[tk-093]

the good thing (if you can bump people off) your game never really 'ends' so it effectively 'saves' where you left off. Your friend leaves you get right back to where you were before. That's awesome

Good point. I mean there is a lot of things to be "fearful" of with all these changes, but there seem to be some pretty awesome things too.

 

[martinmc78]

the good thing (if you can bump people off) your game never really 'ends' so it effectively 'saves' where you left off. Your friend leaves you get right back to where you were before. That's awesome

And the bonus being with smartglass you can check whos playing the game and when they finish.

 

[Reflexx]

So, you can only "loan" a game to up to 10 people around the world instantly?

This is a travesty.

 

[martinmc78]

So, you can only "loan" a game to up to 10 people around the world instantly?

This is a travesty.

And those 10 can only loan to another 10 and so on and so on... with no limit on friends lists and a bit of cooperation with your "family" you could technically have every game available almost always available.

That's a lot of carrying game discs around to peoples houses to loan games via PS4 the airfares alone just wouldn't be worth it.

 

[Coreldan]

I'm pretty sure that being in one family makes you unable to join any other family, though.

 

[Reflexx]

I'm pretty sure that being in one family makes you unable to join any other family, though.

I agree.

Isn't it funny that in this short thread there's already talk about how to game the system?

And we wonder why devs have to look for other ways to monetize their content. lol

 

[martinmc78]

I'm pretty sure that being in one family makes you unable to join any other family, though.

I hope not - that would suck.

Edit:

Ignore the above - just thought about it properly - makes sense that you can only be in one "family"

 

[MerlotC]

Yeah but think about it, very annoying at the same time, say you wanna play Watch Dogs (^^) but your friend is playing it right now through your shared library.. you end up getting a nice warning "Can't play this right now because it's being used by X" not a nice scenario really, so it really needs to be seen first to understand what the family plan really is, if it comes with such a straight restrictions i would think twice before sharing my games with anyone, i want to play my games when i want, being unable to play because someone else is playing your game right now is not nice at all.

No. It has been said that you can always play your own game so the person playing the shared version doesn't impact you at all.

 

[Coreldan]

I hope not - that would suck.

While it "sucks" from the perspective that you can't have an infinite amount of free games, even having those 10 peoples' games is already a huge thing and it's only realistic to expect that one family to be exclusive to you.

 

[onysi]

has anyone actually lend their game?! Its battlefield 4, everyones gonna want their own copy and play with you Online. Holy ****.