In preparation for how Xbox Live will function once Xbox One gets here, Microsoft will convert Gold family subscriptions to individual accounts beginning on Aug. 27. Since everyone in the house will now have to pay for a subscription, Microsoft is adding another three months of Gold to anyone affected.
It’s all in a notice sent out yesterday to subscribers, but it’s worth pointing out that in addition to managing individual subscriptions, the dissolution of family accounts means the loss of features like activity reports (see what the kids are up to) and doling out Microsoft points allowances. Parental controls will remain in place.
Not being a family account holder, I can’t speak to the multiple what-ifs that come from such a move, so check out the FAQ Microsoft posted for more specific answers. Why would Microsoft do this? Well, with Xbox One, every account in a household will be able to share their games and perks with one another. That means sharing digital games — within the same household. There’s more on how that works at this announcement on Xbox Wire.
As some have pointed out, there’s a benefit to family gaming on Xbox One, thanks to something called “Home Gold” which allows a single Gold member (heh) to share all of his perks and games with every other account created on the console. That said, for families that remain Xbox Live subscribers on the Xbox 360, they will have to pay for individual subscriptions — again, that’s why the extra three months of Live is being offered as a consideration.
Image of fake family fake-playing video games by auremar [Shutterstock]
To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.
Comments
17 responses to “Xbox Live Family Subscriptions Convert To Individual Accounts Aug. 27”
Yeh.. I’m in the same boat.. not a family subscriber.. but with a little-one on the way.. I wonder how much of an effect this is going to have in real, practical terms.. would like to hear some others’ opinions on this..
I’m a father of two, married to a gamer so the family pack was a no brainier for me. You got 4 gold subscriptions for $120 which is cheap. But now I’ll only need a single subscription for my whole family to access gold features so this’ll save me money. I’ll only be spending half what I did in the family pack.
Yeah but only on Xbone – from what they’re saying the 360 will continue to treat others on your console as separate.
Ahhhhh, I see. Yeah. That could suck if you’re planning to stick with the 360, which I’m not really going to do. I always pledge to return to previous consoles once a new generation begins but it doesn’t really happen more than a handful of times. I suppose they think giving each member an extra 3 months makes up for it, but it won’t in the long run.
That’s not right. The new system of only needing one gold account for the family to access the features will work on the Xbox One as well.
I have no plan to move to XBox One (yet) and want to stay with the 360 for at least another 12 months but this change sucks for me…. 4 accounts need to be Purchased now… that’s crap
Mega crap
As far as I’ve been able to tell you’ll only need one gold sub on the Xbox One since you’ll have one main account and then everything else is a sub account of that, so the “family” plan is now redundant.
I also assume this means we’ll definitely see the Xbox One no later than November 27th.
From what I’ve read you’ve got a system where as long as one Xbox Live user is gold and designated a certain Xbox as their “Home” then everyone on that console has access to Gold functionality. Furthermore that gold member can go to their mates house, sign in and while they are signed in both Xboxes continue to have Gold functionality (though the mates one only works while signed in).
Should probably have said this is an Xbox One feature only… would be awesome if they brought it to the 360 so my gf and I can play Terreria online!
The release date is 5th of November.
How do I know this?
COD Ghosts is a release title, and it has been earmarked for 5th November on its website.
One Gold / xBox One. We had a family subscription for my three kids and I, and our gold accounts run across all of our three Xbox 360’s. If we do every change to Xbox One’s this means an Xbox home account for each device. Its going to cost me a fortune. especially as i will still need to accounts for the old Xbox’s to play the old games.
One of my accounts is for my 9 year old daughter. I haven’t seen any new games on the Xbox one at this age group yet, so she will still be on 360 only. Even if the console was backwards compatible its still multiple gold home accounts.
Do they honestly think families (if / when they do upgrade) will only have 1 console in the household – definitely no forward thinking here…
We’re a two console house as well. But it’ll still be cheaper to have my wife and I as ‘home accounts’ for each console. As soon as you add a third console though, it’s gonna cost you more. I agree with the multiple console thing. It’s like Microsoft thinks a house just has a single one.
You should be able to have just one Home console and use that Gold account on the other provided it is logged into Live allowing you both access to all the Gold account games and Live stuff too.
I am going to say that they think that if you can afford 3 consoles, (currently going for $150 each min) you can stump up the $6 a month for a gold account.
To be fair, most people don’t have 2+ of the same console in one household unless it is a non-family house (friends sharing a place etc).
The assumption is that family accounts were likely to be all on one console and since each account needed gold on the 360 to access multiplayer etc they were bundled, with the introduction of an account having a Home console that everyone could use you wouldn’t need that except in less common situations such as yours.
With 2 Gold accounts you could easily cover 3 Xbox Ones and they would also be able to be used on the 360 at the same time if the information I have read is correct.
So you would have 2 Xbox Ones set as Home, 1 Gold account logged into a non-Home Xbox One and the ability to still use 2 360’s on the 2 gold accounts at the same time.
3 new and 2 old with just 2 Gold. If your kids all want their own gold accounts then perhaps they will have to start paying a few $ a month for them.
it seems to be a bit counter intuitive because in a 2 console house you need to have 1 console as the main console with the gold account. BUT to get 2 people online you have to have the main account holder playing on the “other” console.
I think that should allow 2 consoles in the same house both being “gold” but with only 1 subscription.
its what i am intending to do so i hope it works
I’d like to know if this happens:
If the main account holder bought a game and made it available on the home console (which it does by default), then logged in and downloaded the same game on a secondary console, could 2 people play each other using only one copy of the game?
“allows a single Gold member (heh) to share all of HIS perks and games with every other account created on the console.”
Where’s the morality crew now, Kotaku?