At this point, few are those who don’t know about gaming with gold, a feature that was added around the last year 2014 to boost the Xbox One, but this has resulted in an advantage for all those Xbox Live Gold members, with one month a truly epic collection of titles. Free for those who redeemed it. And as for the popular myth, or at least the most prevalent, these games are said to be for you forever. Although it is not exactly so.
Sometimes we stopped analyzing this situation, but Microsoft did not want to clarify it, especially since the reason was something we did not know. The theory is as follows: Xbox One and Xbox Series Games with Gold, we can only play them if we have an active subscription. The good thing is that even if we lose it, if we get it back in the day, it is still “recorded” in our account, so to speak. With regard to Xbox 360 games, it is different, because even if we do not have Gold, we can continue to play them, that is, they are our games forever.. the reason? Microsoft engineer Eden Marie tells us about it in this tweet:
FYI, since I saw confusion: Xbox One and Series X games | S so-called games with Gold are your games to be played only while your Gold or Game Pass Ultimate subscription is active. 360/OG games are yours to keep, even after your subscription expires. This was always the case. (1/3)
– Eden Marie (@neonepiphany) April 10 2022
Games with gold, free, but not so much
Marie, in her three tweets, puts us in a position and explains the reason for the difference. It’s simpler than we thought: Xbox 360 games are not managed by subscriptions and cannot be controlled by licenses at this level. I mean, when they give it to us every month, they really give it to us. Of course, this is great for Xbox 360 users, and of course also for Xbox One users, since they are all backward compatible.
However, it also explains that this is the reason why Xbox 360 titles redeemed through games with gold appear in our library where our own titles and Xbox One titles only appear temporarily or through the corresponding section of gold-colored games. Therefore, if you do not have a Gold membership, that member will not appear, but the Xbox 360 will still be there. Curiosity that might make you understand the reason for some of the movements related to these games in your library.
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