FIX XBOX HOME SHARING ( I have Solutions )

Recently, my brother and I experienced another unfortunate glitch in the Xbox Home Sharing settings. Being this isn't the first time this has happened, I feel like it is only necessary to further publicize my opinion for how Home Sharing should work, how
it can be more accessible and easier to manage, and also provide Microsoft with an additional way to generate money (without directly affecting current customers).

I purchased my Xbox One with my own Microsoft Gamertag account. Under that GT, I had bought a few games such as FIFA 18, Ghost Recon Wildlands, Call of Duty, & Monster Hunter World.

My brother purchased his own Xbox One S with his own Microsoft Gamertag account. Under that GT, he had bought NBA 2K18, Battlefield 1, Madden 18, and GTA V.

Obviously, considering we're related and own different titles, we decided to activate our Xbox Home Sharing. Within the initial activation, we began to download and play each other's purchased games (i.e.myself playing NBA 2K & him playing FIFA). Everything
was working smooth for a few months until one morning we both woke up to play each and the pop-up message saying "Do you own this game?" appears ....

We never switched Xbox's, signed into each other's profiles, or anything unusual to reset our Home Sharing, yet here we are getting frustrated and accusing each other of tampering or "messing" with each other's Xbox, profile, games, etc. over something we
didn't even do. We called Microsoft and had some help reseting our Home Sharing settings but the instructions, Tab in the Xbox menu, and how to visibly see the information of the person I'm Home Sharing with was ALL VERY CONFUSING.

Here I am, 6 months later, and the same problem has happened to my brother and I. Unable to fix it ourselves (because of the limit of times to activate Home Sharing), we are unable to play each other's games at all. In addition, I am unable to contact
or find support from ANYONE AT MICROSOFT to help resolve our issue.

SOLUTION

1. How should Home Sharing be activated?

Personally, it should NEVER BE A SINGLE BUTTON as a settings tab. Home Sharing should exist as its own settings tab with an option to view, edit, activate, or cancel all aspects of Home Sharing. Having 1 button with a caution prompt isn't enough detail
for me to manage my Home Sharing comfortably and easily.

2. How should the Home Sharing settings/tab look or include?

Honestly, everything. I should first see my options for activating Home Sharing if I haven't done so already. Once clicking that, another menu should appear allowing me to enter the Gamertag of the person I am willing to share with. When my consent is
established, the receiving person should then confirm/accept my request or have the option to deny/report.

If I am currently Home Sharing, the first details I should see in the Home Sharing settings should be the information of the person I'm sharing with. If I want to get a further breakdown of which games he owns, I should be able to click his name and have that
option available to me. In addition, the two that are Home Sharing could also have control over which games the other person is allowed to download. Given, most people will want their partner to have full access of all their shared games, but you could also
have that case nowadays where an adult shares an account with a minor.

3. How does Microsoft make money from this again?

Game Sharing is free as of right now between 2 people. It makes economic sense for siblings to share a single game instead of purchasing 2 (like what my brother and I currently try to do). Connecting Family accounts through the Xbox Home Sharing system
could be extremely helpful for parents trying to save money and regulate what their kids play. Having an option in the Home Sharing settings menu to add a Third, Fourth, or Fifth account could offer special discounts for purchasing new games, Gold membership,
Game Pass, etc.

For example, a family of 5 could pay for 1 game to share between 2 kids but the odd number and amount of children playing a single game could be expensive and annoying for most parents to handle or resolve. Instead, maybe with the one purchase of the game,
the family will get an extreme discount for the rest of to play the game ( such as $60 the first two children, & only $15 per additional kid or something).

The discount you offer is something you would have to work with certain games or developers, but from the easy accessibility and common-sense this system offers, I think more parents would recognize this new deal as a plus and could increase the number of sales
for Xbox One consoles for low budget families making their last leaps to next-gen consoles. Its a PR stunt that could work well with commercials and media, and its something that not only fixes a problems hundreds of people are having, but offers significant
financial opportunity by helping out families.

Thanks for reading if you made it this far. I'm still waiting for someone to call me back to fix my Home Sharing problem, but in the mean time, I'll keep voicing my opinion for how this can be stopped in the future. It's frustrating when customers pay
for a product/service and then aren't able to use or have access to what they paid for. On the other hand, I do understand the amount of work and time things like this take to resolve completely, so I just hope they are working on a new Dashboard update or
something to address a problem thats been occurring for months and months to hundreds and hundreds of people.

A.J. G.

:)

 

Home Sharing Problems (Solutions?)

This problem has happened to my brother and I a couple of times now, with no notice or "messing-with" from our end. Every so often, our games we share through Xbox Home Sharing resets, or kicks one of us out of the other person's games. Not to mention,
the amount of times this error has happened to us has now stopped me from being able to fix it myself all together. This requires me to contact your team (either by a queue of 62 people waiting to speak with a live rep., or a virtual helper who doesn't have
the means to fix what you need fixed) in order to reset the number of times to "enable Home Sharing. " (which is ridiculous to number from the start anyways but I digress).

My brother has 1 Xbox Live account. I have my own. We decided to share our games but at times and for a few months it will work great. Me playing FIFA which he bought. Him playing NBA 2K which I bought. At times though, it will reset randomly, and will
only allow us to play our owns (me on FIFA and him on 2K). With these errors are usually a pop-up error saying "Do you own this game?" when clearly my brother or I do and should be playing one another's games despite which games were bought on what console.
Like how would I have achievements and progression if I didn't own it at one point Xbox ?

Home Sharing needs it own Settings and menu Tab. If I click the Tab, a fully detailed display of who I'm currently gamesharing with, the games I've bought and am sharing, & the games HE's bought and is sharing with ME should be visible within the settings
menu. It should never be a single button that gives me a little prompt saying its "good to go". Show me the Gamertag and info of the person I'm sharing with (in this case my little brother), Show me my games list (with options for selecting games to share
with partner), & Show me THEIR GAMES (with options for downloading games selected to be shared by the partner). THIS WAY THERE IS NO CONFUSION TO WHO NEEDS TO CLICK WHAT, WHO IM SHARING WITH, OR WHAT GAMES IM ALLOWED TO PLAY!!!

Tired of not being able to play games I've paid for. Find a better way of handling these digital downloads and let me have easier access to my friends/family's games if we've agreed to Home Share. Highly considering a law suit for paying for services/product
and not being able to have access to them. Fix this Microsoft. Please.

 

Xbox One Home Xbox Problem

I am having an issue with home sharing xbox.

Recently I was able to change the Xbox to a home xbox successfully so that I can use xbox gold subscription as well.

However, I installed the most recent update for the xbox one and now I don't have access to the xbox gold subscription anymore while my brother can access his. Now I am unable to open up the 'My home Xbox' options to fix it up again.

 

1, Home sharing was not meant for this kind of sharing as it is not called home sharing.

2, the primary use of home console setting is so other family members can play on that actual consol without the main account being logged in and they give you an ample five times to change in a year if the console breaks.

 

So what it sounds like is if you guys only made your consoles each others consoles that would be one time each of the five times that you are aloud to switch your home consoles so someone has given their information out to somebody and they put your profiles
on their console and made their console their home consoles. or you guys inadvertently made your consoles your own home consoles again for some reason and ran out of switches.

in the first scenario i would go in and change passwords on both accounts so if someone does have the information or has their console set to automatically sign your account in without a password it would require them to put in the new password and if they
dont know it then they wont be able to get into your accounts.