With this month’s Xbox One update, Microsoft has finally started to catch up with Sony’s PS4. To be clear, the Xbox One update hasn’t brought any features we haven’t seen on a gaming console before. Instead, it’s finally been added to Xbox One owners the ability to purchase games away from their console, and we’ll show you how.
Being able to buy apps and games from places other than the ones right in front of the Xbox One doesn’t surprise us as it’s been done before. Microsoft’s Xbox 360 console allowed users to purchase games online. The interesting thing is that it doesn’t automatically download this content for you. Sony’s PS4 console does this, and in most cases it does so without users having to go to their console and turn it on. Fortunately, Microsoft has recreated this entire process.
Before You Begin. You will need an Xbox Live account. Also, this Xbox Live Account will need to have an Xbox One console assigned to it as its home console. If you haven’t set an Xbox One console as the main console for your Xbox Live Account, open the Settings app, then go to Account and do it from there. There is also another important requirement. Your Xbox One must have the low power setting turned on. Don’t worry, it is by default. Unfortunately, if you turned it off, you’ll have to turn it back on before you can buy Xbox One games on your PC or Mac.
Open it on your Mac or PC. For this example, we are on a computer using Internet Explorer. Don’t worry, it will work the same in Firefox and Chrome. The process is the same in Safari.
Set route to
Now, look for the dark green rectangle on the right side of the Xbox website. If you are already signed in to another Microsoft product such as Outlook.com, you will already have all your information in that product. If you haven’t, you will see a button.
Users who are not signed in, sign in with the Microsoft Account you use on your Xbox One. To be absolutely clear, it is important that these are the same account. If you don’t use the same account, you can go home to see if the game you purchased isn’t automatically downloaded to your Xbox One as it should. Worse still, you can split your game purchases and Gamerscore between two separate Xbox Live Accounts.
Now that you’re signed in, hover your mouse cursor over the top navigation pane. Don’t click.
Click .
Now scroll down until you see a green square with a shopping bag and the Xbox logo. It’s on the right side of your screen. For this the title should say, . Click on it.
Here is a list of all the games that are coming to Xbox One at some point in the future or have already been released. Search for the game you are trying to buy. Click on it if you find it.
If you can’t find the game you’re looking for here, no problem. You can search the Xbox website by clicking the magnifying glass inside your screen. Then enter the name of the game you are looking for. For the purposes of this tutorial we buy Incredible spider man.
Click the button.
After a few moments you should see a giant white popup box showing the final cost of the game. If you have credit in your Microsoft Account, simply click to buy and Xbox Live will do the rest. Xbox One owners who have assigned a payment option will also see their payment method now visible. Click Confirm to purchase the game.
If you don’t have credit available and you haven’t added a payment option to your Xbox One, you’ll have to add it now.
This much. When you get home you will find that your Xbox One has already downloaded the game you purchased. This is great for really big games. You can always check the progress of the download on Xbox One by opening the My Games & Apps area and looking at the queue. In most cases, Xbox One games are playable even before they have finished downloading.
Users with multiple Xbox Ones are still downloading. Unfortunately, you’re only allowed to set up a single Xbox One as your home console. This means you still have to go to the Xbox One that isn’t set as your home console and manually trigger a game download from the My Games & Apps area. Microsoft hasn’t said what will happen if your Xbox One’s hard drive is already full. Earlier this year, the company revealed that Xbox One manages game downloads for users, whether that means Xbox One will automatically delete games you haven’t played recently to make room for new games purchased this way.
Happy download.
