Slightly Confused

Xbox Wire released some news on the Gold benefits subscribers can get and share. Well, "share". You can read about it over here. As the title suggests, I am a little confused. In short, Microsoft is trying to say they are behind the idea of sharing. To help illustrate things better, I will try to make up scenarios. 

According to the Sharing Digital Games segment, if I were to buy a digital game, say... Watch Dogs, the game is attached to my Xbox Live account. My friends can come over to my house and play it even if I'm not logged in on my Xbox One. I can also play it when my console is not connected to the Internet, or when it's not finished downloading yet.

I then go to my friend's house, whose name is Jim, and log in to my Live account on his Xbox One. I can then play my digital game, Watch Dogs, on his console. If I decide to buy another game while I'm at Jim's, the game is technically still mine and the aforementioned "rules" will apply to it (e.g., anyone can play it at my house).

Then, Xbox Live Gold Benefits states that if I were to have a Live Gold subscription for my account, the benefits I receive will be shared with everyone at my home. These benefits include "multiplayer gaming, Game DVR, SmartMatch and access to entertainment apps and experiences, including The NFL on Xbox, Skype, Internet Explorer". Xbox is calling this overall benefit the Home Gold.

This means that, if Jim doesn't have a Live Gold subscription, he will get to play multiplayer online if he comes to my house and play here, because I am subscribed to it and my account is linked to my Xbox One, allowing the sharing of its benefits. If I were then to go to Jim's house to play, I can play multiplayer online because of my subscription, and Jim's only able to do the same as long as my account is still logged in.

OKAY. That is about it. Time for me to just talk shit.

I feel that Microsoft is once again overselling these things for no particular reason. To call them "benefits" is a little too much. The whole Sharing Digital Games segment is essentially what I can ALREADY do on my PS3, aside from the "play while you download" bit. I think the same applies for current Xbox 360 owners, but I am not too sure about that. I appreciate the fact that Microsoft is trying to reaffirm their users on what they can or cannot do on the new Xbox One, yet the whole affirmation ends with them saying "it's a great feature on Xbox One". It's not a bad feature, but neither is it great. I mean, come onnn.....

What I am seeing as a benefit is the Home Gold feature. A Live Gold subscription can now essentially be shared with a few serious gamers in your own home - you don't have to each pay the subscription fee to play multiplayer online. But, I think that's it. Currently, that's ONE benefit I see with this deal. 

"Oh, but don't forget about the families and the kids and parents don't have to subscribe to multiple Live subscriptions bla bla bla..."

Look, it sounds nice but I don't think people are giving it much thought. If you are a denizen of the web, you'd understand that there are toxic communities all over the place. This is true with gaming communities as well. 

To my knowledge, you cannot share the PS+ subscription with anyone else. With next-gen, users need to subscribe to PS+ in order to play multiplayer online. This could mean multiple subscriptions within a family. Well, personally, I think this is healthier. So, a parent figure will subscribe to PS+,  and his or her children will be allowed to play multiplayer online ONLY WHEN he/she is around. In a sense, this leads to actual parental supervision (although it can get a little tedious signing in and out of your account).

With Xbox Live Gold, anyone from the family will have access to playing multiplayer online on the Home Console, which is linked to the Gold account. Kids will be able to play multiplayer online, all the while exposing them to possibly toxic communities, or in some cases the kids contribute in making the community toxic. 

Thus, the way I see it, PS+ offers more control on the whole playing online bit, while Gold essentially offers uninhibited 'freedom'. Of course, some might argue that children could still pay for the subscription fee themselves, but that pay-wall serves as a discouragement nonetheless. At the end of the day, it's more about the parents' stance on parenting, which I think will reveal a lot about the family. Heh.

As for "serious gamers", to be honest, I don't think serious gamers who are dedicated to playing online would share one console together, all the while being under one roof. Why would you TAKE TURNS as you wait to play online? Won't you want to play online TOGETHER? I don't know. That's just me. It's like saying, "hey, let's play this game online separately even though we can team up, because haha". *sigh* If you are fine with that, then this might be a good incentive for you to look into getting an Xbox One.

To me, this whole "news" was just Microsoft's... well, the picture below speaks for itself.