How to share games on the Xbox X Series and Xbox Series S

With each new generation of consoles comes new features and, at the same time, some small advantages are lost. One current trend is the growth of the digital market, as more and more games are sold in this format. This is good for several reasons of convenience, as you don’t have to make a trip to the store every time you buy a game, nor is there a risk of damaging the disc. But, at the same time, there is a downside to this digital format: it becomes more complicated to share games, either by lending or trading them.

Fortunately, on the Xbox X Series and Xbox S Series, there is a solution that, while not perfect, is a good alternative for sharing a digital library.

How Xbox game sharing works

This feature almost seems like an exploit when you understand how it works, but as long as you trust the person you are sharing your library with, there is no problem. Whenever a game is purchased and downloaded on the X Series, it can be played by any account on the console on which it was purchased. That happens because, by default, the console on which an account was created is considered the “main console”.

But the account that actually made the purchase can also access that game from another console. And that’s what makes it possible to carry the library from one console to another, just by logging in with the account.

Therefore, two people can share a digital library by exchanging their data to log in to each other’s console, as long as the corresponding accounts are active on each console. It is important to know, however, that only one console (X Series, S Series or Xbox One) can be activated as “primary Xbox”.

In addition, you can only change your primary console up to five times per year. But beyond that, the only limitation when sharing the library in this way is the fact that you cannot share games whose download is done by having the physical disc in the console (as in the case of some backward compatible games) and even, both people can be playing the same game on different consoles at the same time.

Setting up accounts

Sharing games on the Xbox X Series or S Series allows you and another person to play any digital game that has been purchased and this includes those accessed through Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate. The essential thing is to trust the other person, because of the fact that you will have to enter certain data on your console and that implies that you will be able to access the account options.

The first step is to log in with our account on the other person’s console:

• To add an account on Xbox, you have to press the center button on the controller, then move to the Profile and System tab and press Add or Change to enter the account data.

• Then, in the same menu Profile and System you have to enter to Configuration.

• In the Configuration screen, go to the General tab and then select the Personalization option.

• In the Customization menu, select My Main Xbox and then click on the Make this my main Xbox button.

The process must be done every time you want to share one person’s library on another person’s console. For example, if we would like a friend to give us access to their digital games, then what that person should do is to perform the above process on our console.

Once the operation is completed, that’s it. Now, every console where a new account has been added and marked as the main console will have access to the digital games that account has purchased or will purchase in the future. There are no options to lose by doing this or anything and just remember that the other person’s accounts must always be logged into the console you want to share games with.