Xbox Live Gold Family Packs Moving to Individual Accounts

By Catherine Cai
published

Xbox Live Gold Family packs are out come the next dashboard update.

Back in March, Microsoft announced that Xbox Live Gold Family Packs were being phased out. Now, individuals currently on the Family Pack are now being swapped to individual accounts starting August 27th. 

Each individual account will have the remaining time left on gold that was on the Family Pack plus three extra months for the inconvenience of being swapped out of the program.  

This means that the Family Pack features, which included account monitoring for the parent account, will no longer be available. However, Microsoft states that parental controls will still be available. 

MORE: PS4 vs. Xbox One: Console Comparison

Catherine Cai

Catherine Cai is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in Tom's Guide, Tom's Hardware, VG 24/7, RipTen, and The Game Fanatics. She has also worked as a lead producer for video game projects, a manager and lighting director for the stage, and a software engineer. Currently, she works as a Production Engineering Manager for Shopify.

14 Comments Comment from the forums
  • lhughey
    Will you still be able to get up to 4 LIVE accounts for $99.00? It doesn't make sense to have to pay 200.00 (or 240.00) a year to connect your family to LIVE.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    Hasn't microsoft had enough backlash for trying to price rape their customers????? All the more reason to go with PS4. I know if i had 3 kids, i sure as heck wouldn't pay $240 a year so my kids could play online, when PS4 is $5 per month per account. The only thing xbox one has going for it is a few exclusive titles.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    Sorry i meant to say, $5 per month per console on the PS4. Only 1 account to have PS+, and the other accounts on the console will enjoy the benefits and online play.
    Reply
  • nate1492
    Xbox One will be allowing multiple users per account, just like PS4. This article fails to mention that the reason why family packs are being removed is because you will only need 1 account going forward.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    Does that work for xbox 360 also right now?? 1 account with gold, work for the other accounts too?
    Reply
  • nate1492
    Xbox One will be allowing multiple users per account, just like PS4. This article fails to mention that the reason why family packs are being removed is because you will only need 1 account going forward.
    Reply
  • nate1492
    Sorry for the double post, GGG, I'm not sure if it applies to the 360 or not, but I would take a guess that it would as they are tying the accounts across platforms.

    This article seems to confirm that it will work on 360, http://www.slashgear.com/xbox-one-will-allow-multiple-users-on-single-xbox-live-membership-22283155/. That makes sense, if you can go cross platform with the membership, the accounts should work too!
    Reply
  • GeoffDeGeoff
    nate, while one account will allow you to have a 360 and an XBOX ONE you only get the gold features on multiple accounts on the XBOX ONE itself, so to maintain gold features on all your 360 accounts (4 in my case) means you need 4 gold memberships now. Now they may be changing that in the next dashboard update, but as it stands 360 family pack owners are stuffed.
    Reply
  • gggplaya
    That sucks for me and my 360 now. Looks like they were fearing another customer backlash so they made a pre-emptive move to copy the PS4 account model.

    Reply
  • back_by_demand
    I could care less, PC FTW
    Reply