Multiplayer Minecraft Family Sharing Cross-Platform

Hello and thank you.

Yes, I had suspected as much.

But that brings me then to my second question, which is how do we purchase a second copy so that they can play together, as their microsoft accounts both show as "owning" the game already? Thank you again.

Hello dear Gamer, first it's a pleasure to be able to help you today.

My name is Vinicius.

I am a gamer and independent advisor on the XBOX community platform.

Hey DeniseIvarson, how are you today? Hope you're well.

Ok, so, first I would like to point it out that you cannot game share on the PC platform ok, this only works on the consoles, at least, for now.

Also, since they are game sharing with an account (yours) for both of them, unfortunately, only one at a time could play the game, since you only have one licence for that game. :/

There are no ways for us, players, to game share a game and play it at the same time because, doing so, we will be using the same account and the same licence. To be more specific, imagine it like this:

You have an account, this account has a game X, for example.

The game share works like this, you share the same licences of games with another account which does not have it.

The consoles understand that one person at a time could use that license, if anyone else tries to use it, the console gets conflicted, because for the console, you're unable to play it twice, meaning, you're unable to log into that same account twice, and open that game twice at the same time.

I hope I explain it well.

I see, I had no idea that it required Gold. I thought that was just for realms. Or shall I say, I thought a PC server-based game would not require anything for the xbox player to join, but then again maybe that is considered realms...

But I am at a loss as to how to purchase the game for them, as buying it is not an option when I sign in to their Microsoft store account. Only "Install". I must have to disconnect them from Family Sharing somehow or something? But wouldn't that remove them from ALL the Family Sharing then? Thanks so much for taking the time to help me through this. I have been gaming for decades but only on PC and this all feels very foreign to me.

You would need to purchase the game in one of their account's as well.

That brings us to another factor, playing online games on PC doesn't require any subscription, but, to play online on the consoles it requires at least the Xbox Live Gold subscription. :/

So, in order for the kids to play, one of them, has to have the game purchase on his/her account, and could play it on PC, logged into his/her account, and the other one, if playing on the console, using his account, your account set as home console there, for he/she can access your game already bought in your account, and also, he would need to have the Xbox Live Gold subscription to play it online on the console.

Yes, on Xbox consoles, for paid games to be able to be played online, yes, the Live Gold ia needed. :/

No worries, glad I can help.

So, actually you don't need to remove them from your family account, what tou could do, is to subscribe to Game Pass ultimate, since doing so, you they will have access to both Minecraft bedrock (all the vesions including windows 10 edition, xbox edition and pocket edition) and Minecraft Java edition, as well as all of the gamepass games and the Xbox Live gold.

But in order for your both kids could enjoy it, each of them should have a subscription, since they will not be able to play together if they share this subscription. Thats one way.