How To Watch Peacock On Xbox One

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Written By You Need Channels Team

 

Peacock, the official video streaming service of NBCUniversal and Comcast, is a relative newcomer to the video streaming market. What makes it incredibly popular is Peacock’s ad-supported free option that allows you to stream any shows for free. The Peacock app is available for all kinds of smart TVs. But what if you don’t have a smart TV? Here’s how you can stream Peacock’s shows on an Xbox One.

Peacock officially released a free app on the Xbox app store, enabling you to watch Peacock on your Xbox One. You must create either a free or premium Peacock account, install the app on your Xbox One, and log in to start watching. Peacock is not available in all countries, though.

Peacock features many popular shows from NBCUniversal networks, including favorites like The Office and Bel Air. If you want to stream any Peacock shows, since your Xbox One is already connected to your TV, it will make sense to do it that way. Let’s go through the step-by-step process you must follow to watch Peacock on your Xbox One.

How To Watch Peacock On Xbox One

NBCUniversal made it easy to start watching Peacock if you have an Xbox One by releasing the app on the Xbox Store. Unfortunately, it’s not simply a matter of installing the app and watching TV; a few more steps are involved.

Step 1: Sign Up For A Peacock Account

You cannot start watching Peacock until you’ve created an account. Doing that is simple. On any device of your choice, open a web browser, go to https://www.peacocktv.com and click on the yellow button labeled “Get Started” in the top right-hand corner.

This will take you to a screen where you can select your plan. There are currently three options available for you to choose from, though only two of them are apparent, as the third option is a bit hidden. The three options are:

Premium

The Premium plan, which costs around $5 per month, will give you access to all Peacock’s shows and movies. It also includes live sports streaming, which is a significant plus and one of the most popular reasons why people get Peacock in the first place.

However, the Premium package also includes ads to help pay the network since you get a massive number of shows and movies (more than 80,000 hours’ worth) at a very low price. 

Premium Plus

Premium Plus is the gold standard on the Peacock service. For around $10 per month, you get all the same benefits as with the Premium package, but with no ads. Premium Plus will also allow you to download certain shows and movies to watch them offline.

It’s important to note that Premium Plus has some fine print. Despite the “no ads” perk, Peacock adds that there might be a few isolated ads here and there as required by the networks that created the shows.

Free Plan

Peacock’s free plan is a bit hidden on the page. When you scroll below the blocks explaining the Premium and Premium Plus plans, you will see another, less obvious block that says, “See what it’s like to Peacock – Sign up for free.” 

This may seem ideal for some people, but you must keep a few things in mind:

  • Peacock’s free account is intended to let you test the service; it’s not meant to be a permanent subscription, though you can use it as one.
  • The free account is supported by ads, just like the Premium subscription, to pay the bills.
  • You will only have access to less than an eighth of the shows and movies available on Peacock. Whereas Premium and Premium Plus give you more than 80,000 hours, the Free plan will only give you 10,000 hours’ worth of shows and movies.

The 10,000-hour limitation includes Peacock only making the first episode or two of a TV show available to you, or perhaps only the first one or two seasons of a hit show with many seasons, like The Office. You also won’t have access to the biggest and most popular movies on the free tier of Peacock.

Once you’ve selected your option, click on the button inside the block that describes your preferred option, which will take you to the page where you can enter your information. Note that the Free plan won’t ask for your credit card details, though you will have to enter the details for the other two plans.

Once you have your account all set up and activated. It’s time to get Peacock installed on your Xbox One.

Step 2: Install The Peacock App On Your Xbox One

On your Xbox One, go to the home screen and open the app store. Once inside the app store, click on the search button and search for the word PeacockTV. You should see the Peacock app as the top option (don’t be confused by any games or unrelated apps – check for the one licensed by Peacock TV LLC with the Peacock logo).

Now simply click on the Get button and then the Install button. This will install the Peacock app.

If you don’t find the Peacock app on the app store, it could be because you are not in a region where Peacock is supported, or your Xbox may not detect that it is in a Peacock-supported region even if you are. Thankfully you can still install the Peacock app.

To do so, open your web browser of choice on your Xbox (you should have both Microsoft Edge and Google Chrome pre-installed on your Xbox). In your browser, navigate to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/p/peacocktv/9pl67r4p9pg5 and click on Get and then Install from that screen. This will install the Peacock app on your Xbox, even if it isn’t available on the app store.

Step 3: Log In With The Peacock App

After you’ve installed the app, you can open it on your Xbox One as you would with any other app or game. You will be greeted by Peacock’s login screen. Simply enter the email address and password you used when you created your Peacock account in step one. This should log you in, and you will be able to watch Peacock on your Xbox One!

What If I Still Can’t Get Peacock To Work On My Xbox One?

These steps might not work mainly if you are trying to access it from outside of Peacock’s region or if Peacock detects that you are even if you aren’t, which could sometimes happen because of configuration problems with your Internet Service Provider.

Peacock is currently legally available in the United States and some US territories, like Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. Sky and NOW subscribers in the UK, Ireland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Italy can also watch Peacock. Though Peacock focuses on spreading to other countries, they are not yet supported, which strangely includes Canada.

The reason why they do this is mainly because of licensing problems. Since many of NBCUniversal’s shows and movies are licensed to other networks in different countries, the streaming service cannot show those in such countries.

You will not be able to load Peacock’s website to create an account from any of the unsupported countries, and the app probably won’t appear in the Xbox app store, either. There is a solution, but note that this is often illegal or, at the very least, frowned upon by TV streaming networks like Peacock, and they may try to stop it at some point.

The solution is a VPN (Virtual Private Network). VPNs create virtual links with servers in another country of your choice and replace your IP address with that of the server. This way, you can connect your network to a server from the United States, then access Peacock that way. Peacock’s servers will detect that you are located in the United States, and you will get full access.

Note that, apart from possible legal issues, you may also face a few other problems:

  1. VPNs are not free. Though many of them offer free services, these are not trustworthy and are often very slow.
  2. VPNs are slightly slower than a regular, “clean” internet connection, but if you choose a reliable and recommended VPN, this speed difference should be negligible.
  3. Not all VPNs support video streaming. Read up about VPNs and what they support before taking this route.

Conclusion

Setting up Peacock on your Xbox One to watch your favorite shows and movies should be a straightforward process if everything works as it should. Unless you are outside of the United States and supported territories, that is. In that case, a VPN is a possible solution, but since Peacock is trying to expand internationally anyway, it might simply be worth the wait.

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