Xbox Dev Clears Up Confusion About Ownership Of Games With Gold Titles

It used to be part of the draw. Even in advertising that the GWG were yours to keep forever. Now it's a 'quirk'.

Imagine not screwing over your customers for tighter control and money. Amateurs.

This is the 'key' to understanding how Software works - even on Consoles. You never 'own' the software, you only own a 'license' to access that software. The 360 and 'earlier' games were sold with a 'fixed' licence to access the software on that particular hardware. The game still 'thinks' its running on old hardware via BC so the 'OG/360' License still works. You don't have the 'right' to play an 'old' game on 'new' hardware because the License you purchased was for the 'hardware' it was meant for - I know that's not as 'consumer' friendly, but that's what the license you purchased was for.

There are several different license types nowadays - you have a 'general' licence that is with Physical media so it allows 'anyone' with the physical media to access the software -when you 'trade' physical, you are actually selling your 'general' license so even if you have all the software installed, you can no longer access it. You also have a 'digital' licence that is locked to your account which is non-transferable (at least at the moment).

Since the XB1 era, there has been 'conditional' Licences (or Subscription based as they are called here) which are only 'valid' if you meet the conditions - such as maintain your subscription and/or Game must remain in Game Pass.

It seems that MS have also changed their 'licences' to be more like PC licences. Instead of being 'licensed' to the XB1 or 'Series' its licensed to 'Xbox' so you can play whatever the 'best' version for your hardware. With Sony, it seems they still have a different License for PS4 and PS5 - so they can 'decide' whether to charge you to upgrade or even have to buy the specific version (PS4 or PS5) you require.

I was there: it was this way since the beginning, like PS Plus.
The games are yours to keep until you have a Gold sub active.
To be honest I didn't know the reason why X360 games were the exception on modern platforms, now I understand it.

@Kooky_Daisuke Recently, yes, but we have gotten plenty of good 360 games over the years from GWG that are nice to know I completely own.

Where are these fabled series s|x games with gold at?

@Kooky_Daisuke probably because it seems to now be limited to games on the Backwards Compatibility Program which is only a portion of the games released on the OGXB & 360 so the deal works for XB1 & Seris X|S owners

@Microbius Yeah, and that's why I never get it when people go on about hating subscription services like GP because it's just rentals and they want to own the games etc, but then they praise Gold and Plus monthly games as keeping them and I'm like "but it's the same thing with less variety and a smaller, worse library that you have to perpetually subscribe to to get any new games on it." Optics are everything, I guess

If og Xbox and Xbox 360 games don't support subscription based licenses, wouldn't that also mean that subbing for just one month of Game Pass should get you all of those games that are included in GP, yours to keep forever? Can't tell myself as I've never unsubbed. 😃

@BAMozzy bc you're using single quotation marks (apostrophes) so much, your spiel comes off as a combination of sardonic and strange.

@Kooky_Daisuke And on the flip side you have people like me that love collecting old trash games, like Zoids Assault, to play.

I used to do this all the time, specially if I could get Gold for free or a £1 for a month

@Krysus Surely you didn't expect them to advertise this as a quirk even if it was one. it is a draw despite the reason they had to do it like this.

@FoodForSammy If you sub for just one month, then you can only 'purchase' those OG/360 games offered that month for 'free'. Its classed as a purchase for $0.00 and they are only that price for half a month. You get one at the start of the month and the 2nd halfway through the month.

After 'purchasing' those games, you get the 'full' digital licence to play regardless of whether or not you maintain your license. You effectively 'bought' the game for '£/$0.00'.

Because these games only have the 'full' digital licence, they are effectively discounting those 360/OG games to '0' cost and you 'purchase' them at that price, its no different to buying the game digitally at whatever the current price is so you get the same 'full' unconditional license.

With the XB1 era, they have the option of giving you a conditional (Subscription-based) license to access those games. The condition being tied to your Subscription status and/or any other conditions of the Subscription service. With PS+/GwG, the only condition is that you are 'subscribed' at the time its offered to 'claim' it, and must have an active Subscription to access it. With Game Pass, you have that same condition, but also the condition that the game too has to be available in Game Pass -as soon as it leaves GP (or you let your subscription lapse), the 'conditions' of your license are no longer met, so no longer have access regardless of whether you have the 'software' on your system or not.

After the OG/360 games leave 'GwG', the discount is removed so you would need to purchase at the current price if you missed out.

@Heroofthenexus LOL

Wouldn't hurt the sods to add a few more BC games every month. Most of the free ones are BS. All the money they make ffs

I claimed gears 5 when it was a gold game & I can play that without gold or gamepass for some reason

I also claimed Forza horizon 2 when it was free with gold & noticed yesterday that it's no longer in my list of games so they must've removed it after they delisted it from the store which is crap

Microsoft: When we all play, we all win.
Also Microsoft: Oh what’s that? You want to play with your online friends? Pay us or stick to offline.

Its been really unfair that Microsoft has been charging us since 2002 just so we can play online multiplayer when Steam doesn’t. I mean is not like the internet is free so what’s Microsoft excuse for being greedy?? And Sony didn’t charge for online multiplayer with the PS3 so the whole “they need the money to maintain servers” is a complete BS. Microsoft is a multi-billion dollar company with sh*t-ton of cashcows so there’s no justification for paid online. I really hope they come to their senses and make it free.

All the GWG Xbox OG and 360 games are in my owned library - except Armed and Dangerous for the original Xbox. That one shows up in the Games with Gold section and shows an error when you try to access the community stuff.

@Heroofthenexus no.

@Cherip-the-Ripper Maid of Sker, Gears 5, For Honor and Aerial Knights Never Yield.

Wait, Xbox gold offers Xbox one games? No way! I’m totally surprised they’ve not yet spun the monthly poor value (competitively speaking) offerings of Xbox/360 games as them wanting to ensure we get to keep our games when the eventually finally turn the lights out on Gold.

@JoakimZ well I stand corrected, the first three got a next gen update way after they dropped on games with gold so I've missed those, don't even have for honor. But that last one we actually got at launch huh nice

Games w gold has been obsolete for years but the service used to include amazing value. my old account might’ve had 50-75 quality x360 & Xbox one titles but anyways, g-with-g’s games have been 💩 after Xbox went all in with game pass.

@Heroofthenexus What’s the point in owning an Xbox these days if you aren’t going to use the game pass?

gears of war & halo’s steady decline just nose dived off a cliff. Microsoft is likely to outshine it’s deviant competitors in near future. They’re turning Xbox into an unholy EA/Disney abomination, no doubt

I was trying my "owned" 360 XBLA games and some are even asking to buy the full game while I already have the achievements unlocked. Weird that some games have a problem & others don't. I wish the overall experience of digital bought games would be "easier" because it's annoying.

@Cherip-the-Ripper The Xbox Series games are all on Game Pass. The games on 'Games With Gold' have been almost funny the quality has been so pathetic. They have really been keepin GP interestring in this insanely long drought of first party games... Besides Tunic n Shredder (both aren't even 1st party, they are just both exclusive to Xbox) They haven't had a game since MF Halo n Forza. So thankfully they have been staying on point with 3rd party games being added to the collection, a lot of games day n date even which has been really dope.
We get Star Field at the end of the year, n Redfall hopefully. In 2023 Xbox has no excuses, they have to make sure no more games be slippin a year or whatever. We have to start having some of the heavy hitter games they showed when they did the Series X/S games show case... Like Fable n stuff.

It is honestly AMAZING that Xbox is actually beating out PS5 this year, we have dropped ZERO games. N PS has dropped multiple games! they should be slayin Xbox. Now if Xbox has proper games consistently... its game over for PS.

@Stoned_Patrol honestly man I don't trust Redfall to release this year. I mean Starfield sounds crazy enough and even that game has been getting lots of coverage with the dev talk videos and the artwork appearing every few weeks. Redfall's team is too silent for me.
I think it's odd as well, drops have been so meager lately, it's at times like these I'd wish we could just pause the sub. Even without the bethesda acquisition the it's too silent from the other first party devs. My heart bleeds for a ps5 alas that situation remains unchanged.

@NEStalgia No. GP can rip games out from under u if u are in the middle of playing them. PS+, GWG, etc aren't like that.

@Would_you_kindly FH2 is still there for me.

@Syfix009 they didn't get to be billionaires by giving things away free that they could charge for. Also, nothing that ever goes from free to paid, will ever go back to free, IMO.

@twztid13 Yes, but conversely, a game added 3 months ago to game pass/plus+ while you weren't subscribing is playable if you subscribe today if it's still up there, while gwg/plus- if you didn't subscribe the month they added it, that's it, you'll never get it.

Both are just rental services with different pros and cons.

Though I'll say there's 20 games on gp and plus+/now at any time I'd rather play than anything MS has released on gwg for the past 3 years . Plus- has fared a little better, but only a little...

@twztid13 must just be me then I know I claimed it when it was free with gold but it's not in my library any more

@Would_you_kindly u change HD or delete it accidentally? I know those are basic questions that u already probably considered, but just trying to think why i could still have it & u don't. I didn't try to start it up, mind u, i just double checked that it was in my external HDD when i saw ur comment.

@NEStalgia that's worthless to me who doesn't play games fast, to get games snatched from me at some random time, but to each his own.

@twztid13 I think that's an argument against renting games more than a commentary on any particular model. In the 80s and 90s I had 3 days 2 nights to pay a game at $3.50 a pop from rental.... We've come a long way on rentals...

@twztid13 well I deleted it to make space I just assumed it would stay in the games I claimed with gold section so I could redownload it aslong as I had gold but nope

@Would_you_kindly ahh, ok, yes, i read somewhere a while back that told readers not to delete it, because we couldn't download it again. It was a bit after it was delisted. That definitely sucks. I have almost deleted it several times for the space, but I'm glad I didn't. I did delete the fast & furious FH2 thing (not sure if that's considered DLC?), but haven't tried to redownload it. I never played FH2, so that's the main reason i don't want to delete it. After i get to play it, it may make more sense. Then again, i guess i really wouldn't know if i was missing anything if i deleted it before then, but I've heard only good things about it so definitely want to check it out myself when i whittle the backlog down (tho gamepass makes that near impossible now, lol).

@NEStalgia nah, rentals are fine as long as i know how long i have to play a game, because if not long, i wouldn't start it/rent it.

@twztid13 I bought one of the expansions for it but didn't buy the actual game because I got it free with gold if Idve known they were going to remove it from my library I would've bought it but I guess its one of those snooze ya lose situations

@twztid13 that's one thing now/plus+ does better than GP is telling you how long you have, most of the time, anyway.I wish ms would do that.

@NEStalgia agreed. I understand why they don't want to, so publishers may feel more comfortable putting games on, that will get ppl to buy them if they take them off & ppl are in the middle of them. But, it just makes me avoid games that I'm not sure i will want to play all the way through before playing something else. I skip around lots, i wish i could stay focused on 1 game at a time before i get bored & have to come back later. Still, hopefully they'll at least give an estimate of how long a game will be available eventually.

@twztid13 Yeah, I pay kind of the same way. I have probably 6 big games on all 3 platforms started but not finished. Though that's never fun because there's a momentum to a game and jumping back half way through means not remembering half of how to play.

To be fair to gp, most games seem to be around in blocks of either 6 months or a year, and if course permanent for first party, except Rockstar games that are like 3-6 weeks. But you never do now. Maybe Sony breathing life into their sub will make ms add that qol to theirs. Though I'm not convinced the newly marketed Plus will breathe that much life into their sub.

@Cherip-the-Ripper Your heart bleeds for a PS5? Hmm I honestly haven't felt compelled to buy a PS5 at all.... Almost all of the games that have come out for the PS5, also are PS4 games. Really takes the wind out of my sales or it. I mean that is truly why God of War is being called DLC, because the graphics aren't upgraded at all from GoW 2018... The new GoW is essentially a PS4 game that plays on the PS5, but with like very minimal upgrades

@Stoned_Patrol it's more because of my existing ps4 backlog and me just wanting a better machine. Also because I've solely been playing on my xbox for so long now I want something else again.
I'm not too interested in some of the ps5 exclusives either ya know but I've bought Demon's Souls for my bro and I happen to have a copy of Miles Morales. Wouldn't mind playing those next to the already announced exclusives.
GOW oddly enough is something I'm actually totally not interested in lol