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Gold no longer required for basically everything It took a while, but an Xbox Live Gold membership is no longer needed to access apps like Netflix and Skype. You still need it to play multiplayer games online, but the massive restrictions on other functionality have mostly been lifted. Always-on has a bright side While the Xbox One's always-on feature has been a point of some contention, jumping right into a game from live TV is nothing short of brilliant. Xbox One will suspend your most recently played game while you watch TV or do other things and when you rejoin your game session it's resurrected with absolutely no loading time. Of course, if you don't use your Xbox One with live TV there's really no reason to keep the console on 24-7, save for receiving updates when you're not using the console. PlayStation 4 added the majority of the functionality described here with a firmware update. Exclusive games and content