Game gifting is coming to the Xbox One store

Update: As promised, game gifting has arrived on the Xbox Store for members of the Xbox Insider Program. As a result, it's now possible to purchase an Xbox One title and send it directly to one of your Xbox Live friends or to an email address. Once they've received the game, the gift recipient only has to redeem a code to download and play it.

It's not clear if this is exactly how the feature will work when it's eventually rolled out to the wider public, but it does seem likely. We'll update when the feature leaves the Xbox Insider Program and becomes more widely available.

Original article continues below...

Gamers will soon be able to buy games as gifts for their friends through the Xbox One store according to Xbox Vice President, Mike Ybarra.

On Twitter a fan asked Ybarra when we could expect to see the gift purchases feature added to the store and he replied that it’s “not far” off. At the moment this isn’t possible on the PlayStation or Xbox stores, though Valve offers it through Steam.

Give a gift

Digitally gifting games is a popular feature on Steam and it’s been highly requested on the Xbox store – take, for example, this post on the Xbox feedback site which has garnered more than 5000 votes.

Ybarra didn’t explicitly say when the feature would be introduced or even when it would be announced.

However, it would make sense for it to be introduced before the run up to Christmas when there’s a large rush of new releases and most people would likely be feeling generous enough to pay the price of a digital game for someone else. At least you’ll save on wrapping!