Get ready to get in the giving spirit, as it looks like game gifting will be coming to the Xbox One soon. This information comes from a tweet sent by Mike Ybarra, the Vice President of Xbox and Windows gaming at Microsoft.
Not far!
— Mike Ybarra (@Qwik) July 6, 2017
When asked by a fan how long it would be until players have the opportunity to gift new purchases to friends, Ybarra responded with “Not far!” Unfortunately, Ybarra didn’t follow up with any additional details about when the feature would be live.
Judging by how the original question was worded, it sounds like game gifting will be an option when making a new purchase of a digital game through the Xbox Store. Instead of registering the game to your account, you’ll likely be able to choose a friend from your friends list to download the game instead. Gifting will probably not work on games that have already been purchased and downloaded, meaning you can’t gift your friend a copy of a game you bought years ago.
As for when the service will go live, we have no clue. Gamescom is coming up in August, so perhaps Microsoft will officially unveil the feature during its press conference. We already know that some game announcements were held back from this year’s E3, so it’s possible a new feature like game gifting was as well.
As of now, gifting is not an option on either the PS4 or Xbox One. Players on Steam can gift game purchases to friends, schedule when the gift will be sent and include a special message for the recipient. It would not be surprising to see Microsoft copy this system for the Xbox One.
So what do you think? Are you excited you’ll be able to send digital games as gifts to friends on an Xbox One? Do you think Sony will follow along with a similar feature on the PS4? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
