Xbox One Now Offers Trial and Unlock Demos

Awesome feature

Xbox One's Games Store has had very few demos in the eight or so months it's been on the market, but that's set to change, as Microsoft has recently implemented an update in which game demos will be available in the same capacity that the were and still are on Xbox 360.

You'll now be able to trial games for free like you do when sampling an Xbox Live Arcade title, before paying to unlock the full version without having to download the whole thing from scratch. You won't find current games on the Xbox One Games Store available to trial, but future titles will.

"When Xbox One launched you could do game demos and you could do games. But we didn't have the functionality that was on Xbox 360 - that 'trial' experience where you could download a demo and then convert it [to a full version]," ID@Xbox boss Chris Charla explained.

"But now we do. In the same way that we update the Xbox One OS every month, they update the development system every month - or regularly, anyway. So that's something that we recently turned on. I don't think we've seen any ID@Xbox games yet that have shipped with trials, but we may well in the future. It's something that's open to everybody."

Microsoft is also looking to make ID@Xbox games more visible on the Xbox Games Store, with no delineation between what qualifies as a game. "On Xbox One, a game is a game is a game. They won't be segregated in any way at all," says Charla.

"Saying that, we have had a lot of player requests for some way to specifically find the ID@Xbox games, so we have talked about adding some functionality so that people can do a search for just the ID@Xbox games," he added. "But anything we did like that would be in addition to our core values which are that they are in the store with everything else."

ID@Xbox titles so far include Strike Suit Zero, Super Time Force, Outlast and Sixty Second Shooter Prime. Four ID@Xbox games launched in the space of one week in June, and the number of indie titles set to make their way to Xbox One is set to increase.

"You can expect lots more games coming. There are literally hundreds of ID@Xbox games in development right now," Charla noted. "There a lot in development for 2015, and some for 2016, too."

The more, the merrier.

[Via Eurogamer]

I love this idea. I loved playing a few levels before deciding if game for me and then playing full game 1 minute later. Looking forward to this!

I've always been a fan of being able to play a game, then deciding if it is for me or not, this is a great addition. Now if we could just get a few basics like screen capture, voice message etc.

Personally I enjoyed this feature on 360 and would love to see it get more widespread use on the Xbox One.