Earlier this year, Microsoft held a test period on their gifting services. With the holiday season coming soon, Microsoft released the announcement that Xbox One players can now buy digital games and subscriptions as gifts.
Microsoft Director of Programming Larry "Major Hyrb" Nelson shared a video on his Twitter page. It was a simple how-to instructional on how to do the gifting. Xbox One players, after having chosen a game from the Microsoft Store, simply just have to click the "Buy as Gift" option. They place in the email of the person they want to send the gift to. Once that person receives the email, he will get a digital code which he can redeem in the store.
According to Polygon, Xbox One players have been asking for this feature for almost three years already. This is a big advantage over their console rival, the PlayStation 4, as the latter has not implemented a similar system. Valve, on the other hand, has always allowed PC gamers to buy games as gifts to their friends on Steam.
While this is a big step in answering their players' request, there is still some restrictions that Microsoft can work on to improve the system. As it appeared in the video, the gift can only be redeemed within the United States. This may seem confusing for Xbox One players from other countries. According to the terms and conditions of the gifting service, to clarify, the game will be tied to the region of the one who purchased the game.
Another issue that some have already pointed out is that they would not be able to gift the existing digital games they already have. Lastly, according to Forbes, not every game will be available for gifting. Pre-release games and in-game items cannot be gifted. Games on sale can only be gifted twice within two weeks.
Although the gifting feature does seem to have a lot of restrictions, it is a good start in allowing to share games easily.
