If you’ve read our PlayStation guide, you already know the bad news about that console: there is no gift button, and the only real route is a store card. Xbox is the happy exception. Microsoft supports gifting properly, and once you know where the option lives, sending someone a game takes about two minutes.
There are two caveats worth knowing before you start, because they account for essentially every failed attempt. The first is that you and the recipient must be in the same country. The second is that not every game supports gifting — it’s up to each publisher, so the option is present on many titles and absent on others. Neither has a workaround, but both have a clean fallback, which is the gift card.
The steps
- Find the game in the Microsoft Store. Open the Microsoft Store on the Xbox console, or the Xbox app on a Windows PC, or the Xbox Store in a web browser, and search for the game you want to give. You need a Microsoft account signed in to buy anything, but you do not need an Xbox yourself.
- Choose the gift option rather than Buy. On a console, look for the gift-wrap icon on the game's page and select it. In the Xbox app on PC and in a browser, open the '…' menu next to the buy button and choose 'Buy as a Gift'. In the Microsoft Store on Windows the gift icon sits to the right of the buy button.
- Pick the recipient. Choose someone from your Xbox friends list, or type in their email address. If you're buying in a web browser you will only be offered the email option, so have their address ready.
- Check you're in the same country. Xbox requires the recipient to be in the same country as the sender for a gift to go through. This is the most common reason a gift purchase is blocked, and there is no workaround.
- Pay and send. Choose a payment method and complete the purchase. The recipient gets an email, and a message on their console, containing a code they redeem against their own account.
- If the game has no gift option, send a gift card instead. Not every title in the store supports gifting — it is up to the publisher. When the option isn't there, buy an Xbox gift card for the game's value instead and tell them what it's for. The money lands in their account and they buy the game themselves.
Where the gift option is on each device
The wording differs slightly depending on where you’re buying from, which is the main source of confusion:
- On an Xbox console: open the Microsoft Store, find the game, and look for the gift-wrap icon on its page.
- In the Xbox app on a PC (including handheld Windows devices): find the game, click the “…” button, and choose “Buy as Gift”.
- In the Microsoft Store on Windows: the “Buy as a Gift” icon sits to the right of the ordinary buy button.
- In a web browser: find the game on the Xbox or Microsoft store site and choose “Buy as a gift” from the “…” dropdown. Note that buying this way, you will only be offered the email option rather than a friends list — so have their email address to hand.
You do not need to own an Xbox to do any of this. A Microsoft account and a card is enough, and the browser route works from any computer.
What you can gift
Games, add-ons and subscriptions — including Game Pass Ultimate. That last one is worth pausing on, because for a lot of recipients it’s the better present: a few months of access to hundreds of games, including Xbox’s own new releases on launch day, for roughly the price of one game. We’ve set out when it beats a card and when it doesn’t in our gift card vs Game Pass comparison.
The gift-card fallback, and when to use it deliberately
An Xbox gift card is the answer in three situations: the game has no gift option, the recipient is in a different country, or you don’t know what they already own.
That third case is more common than people expect. A modern games library is a list on a screen in someone else’s house, and there is no polite way to audit it. If you can’t confirm they don’t have the game, a card removes the risk entirely and costs you nothing in thoughtfulness — particularly if you tell them what you had in mind for it.
Cards are sold as digital codes and as physical cards. If there’s an occasion with wrapping paper involved, buy the physical one so there’s something to hand over.
How they redeem it
Whether it’s a gifted game or a card, the recipient ends up with a code. They enter it against their own Microsoft account, either on the console or by signing in on Microsoft’s redemption page in a browser. Xbox Support’s own prepaid-code page, linked in the sources below, has the current steps if they get stuck.
One small piece of advice from experience: if you’re gifting to a child, send the code to a parent rather than to the child directly. Redeeming involves signing into an account and it’s smoother with an adult present.
A note on physical Xbox games
None of the above applies if you’re buying a boxed game — you just buy it and wrap it. But check one thing first: the Xbox Series S has no disc drive, so a disc is unusable on it. If you don’t know which Xbox is in the house, buy digital. Our physical vs digital page covers the wider trade-off.
Gifting on a different platform?
Xbox is no longer the only platform with a proper gift button. On PC, Steam caught up in July 2026 — you can now send a game to a plain email address, and buy it through guest checkout without a Steam account of your own. Nintendo Switch still means a cartridge, a download code or an eShop card, and PlayStation has no gift button at all, so a store card is the route there. If a card is where you’ve landed for any of them, our gaming gift cards buying guide compares each platform’s card side by side with a live price on every one.