Xbox Family Sharing Game Pass
October 8, 2024 7:07 AM   Subscribe

Xbox users, please help me understand how Family Sharing a prepaid XBox Game Pass is going to work.

My child "Alex" has an Xbox account with prepaid Game Pass (entered from a gift card) good through 10/13/24. I have an Xbox account with prepaid Game Pass (entered from a gift card) good through 1/7/25. Our accounts are linked through Family Sharing, and both accounts list our one and only Xbox as the Home Device. We are good to share my account's Game Pass, right? When will Alex's account reflect the 1/7/25 expiration date? There will be much wailing and gnashing of teeth in my house until we can all be sure that the Game Pass sharing is working right. Thank you!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)
 
Best answer: There is no family sharing with Game Pass. To share it you need to either be using your home Xbox or your account needs to be signed in on another Xbox.

Since you only have a single Xbox it will be fine. Your home Xbox gets the entitlements for your user so you don’t even need to be signed in. That Xbox will just always have Game Pass as long as your account has Game Pass.

Things get more complex when you have two Xboxes, because your user cannot play on two Xboxes at once but as that is not the case here no need to worry about it.
posted by cape at 11:12 AM on October 8


Response by poster: Thanks, cape, this is encouraging. Do you know if Alex's account will ever reflect the expiration date on the Game Pass on my account? Or will he just have access through the Xbox?

In case anyone from Microsoft/Xbox is reading, I hate all this S* and hope your pillow is NEVER cold.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:37 AM on October 8


I’ve never had two accounts with game pass at once but I think what you will find is the child account will show as having none/expired game pass, but playing the games will be fine because your account will still have it so the home Xbox will have it for anyone playing on it.

I only have a single game pass account and sharing works even between two Xboxes, there’s just this dance you have to do where the game pass holder needs to play or be signed in on the non-home Xbox. That way the home Xbox has game pass entitlement via it being set as the home Xbox, and the other Xbox has it via the game pass account being logged in even if someone else is playing. Not super intuitive or elegant but it works.
posted by cape at 2:53 PM on October 8 [1 favorite]


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