No Plans for Xbox One Digital Game Gifting

The concept of being able to gift games or downloadable content to friends is great one, but don't expect it to come to Xbox One anytime soon. That's according to Xbox boss Phil Spencer, who says on Twitter, "I like the featured, great part of digital, but we don't have a plan right now."

Digital game-gifting is a relatively new concept. Valve's Steam service on PC is one of the only online game marketplaces to support the feature, allowing its 75 million users to buy games for friends. This feature is also available on The Witcher developer's online platform, GOG.com.

Spencer isn't the only Xbox employee to broach the subject of digital game gifting. Ahead of the Xbox One's release last year, Microsoft's Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb said it's a "great feature we'd like to add in someday, but it won't be there at launch."

Xbox director of product planning Albert Penello said in September 2013 that Microsoft originally planned to support trading and loaning of digital Xbox One games for launch. This functionality was dropped, however, when Microsoft changed some of its controversial policies last summer.

Like Hryb, Penello said gamers can expect various digital game benefits to come to Xbox One sometime after launch. "I think we need to do that. That has to be part of the experience," he said at the time.