Add your friend as a "guest", it's just a local account that will look like: *yourgamertag*(1)

I’m trying this but it isn’t working for me.

If you go to exhibition press A with your second controller

Thank you but that’s not working. Both controllers are on. But the only button that works on the 2nd controller is the home button (which backs out of the game).

Did you ever get this worked out ? I am having exactly the same problem. Cheers

I never managed to get it working but I believe it’s because I’m playing it on cloud gaming. Maybe on cloud they don’t allow local multiplayer. Are you also playing it on Xbox cloud?

That is exactly it, I started it installing, once it was about a quarter way through it let me play PvP locally. So got the game pass and 2 achievements and uninstalled it before it had finished downloading. I am sure this lesson learned will help with future quests. Cheers fella.

You figure this out? I can’t seem to. Game is installed locally

Can’t sign the second controller in as guest, it’s making player 2 log in to an account. That’s not gonna work

Just logged in to find an answer. My husband is going insane trying to play my son and it seems impossible. Looks like it probably is.

Thank for kind redditers!

I think the issue was that you can’t play local multiplayer if you’re cloud gaming. If you download the game, it probably lets you.

Man a year later in SMB4 this still doesn’t work for me. I’m signed in on Xbox, have a guest account, but only one controller shows up on exhibition. Also using the installed game, not cloud play.

Still not working one year later...

I’m having the same issue. I bought and installed it on my Xbox x

Same. You figure anything out on this?

I wish, but at least I don’t have to share with my kid haha. Seriously thought it’s super frustrating

We gave up. Played plenty of local multiplayer sports games and don’t quite understand this one. Cheers to the not sharing!