Need rapid Xbox live lesson for me/my son please

happyhero

Hi we have an Xbox 360 and a connect and my boy loves it and tries to live on it so we have to limit his time on there.

Some of his friends have Xbox live and so he wants it, so after some parent chats we decided we might get it for him but we are quite ignorant about many parts of it and so need a quick gen-up.

I connected the Xbox to our broadband via cable and it immediately started doing things and wanting to upgrade and so I believe we did that or rather my son did. We found we could do stuff by voice with the connect but what exactly can we do if we don't go any further?

It seems to allow me to try an access a browser but then does not actually get to it, do we need the Live package for that to work, ie to surf the net or similar things?

What can we do without the Live package but connected to the broadband..... thats any good or fun to do?

The package on offer says £39 which we were surprised with as we thought we heard it was cheaper in the recent past, has it just gone up?

Also it says that is for Gold membership which implies to me there are other levels i.e. bronze and silver but they don't seem to be offered so whats the story here?

We've been told you can sometimes get it cheaper, I saw in one place it had an option to put in a 25 digit redeem code but I have Googled a little and cannot see a way to get it cheaper, is there a way or do we need to just bite the bullet and pay the £39?

Also heard that sometimes you can buy 12 months but get some extra months thrown in free, is that still possible?

Anything else we need to know about Xbox live if we go for it?

GunJack

lots of points there...

1. silver doesn't cost, but you can't play online games (i.e. multiplayer with his mates)
2. gold lets you play online
3. never pay 39 for a year of gold, you can find it cheaper, e.g.
http://www.cheapxboxlivecodes.com/ have 12 months for 23. they e-mail the code to you.

Strider590

One thing........ Do the world a favour and destroy the the microphone

Kids screaming down microphones, it's bad enough on PC, I hate to think how bad it gets on consoles!

Had to ban one from my teamspeak server and the gaming servers I run, after he decided he was a rapper and started "singing" about his grannies nether regions....

AndyPix

Hi -

Silver is what everyone gets and it is free.
That allows you to download updates for games/operating system and to download and purchase games.

You need gold if you intend to play online against other players etc.

£39 is for a years subscription - But you can pay monthly if you prefer .. It is £5.99 a month.

You can dip your toe in the water if you like .. You can buy a scratch card from game shops that has a code for 3 months subscription for £15 if I remember rightly ..

As said above though - there are discount sites - cdkeys is a good one ..

Enjoy

artyclarty

A quick tip too. If you decide that your son can have a gold subscription. Whatever you do. Do *NOT* put any card details onto the xbox itself especially if it is just to pay for a gold subscription. Although things have improved over the last few years, it is still quite easy to purchase games/accessories/ingame content and spend a lot of money quickly if the user does not know (care, or even realise?!) how much they are actually spending.

If you want credit, it is easy enough to go down to tesco/sainsburys/wilkos/game etc and pick up a prepay card or get a key online to do so meaning that they can only spend what you have put onto the account itself

I apologise if this has scared you a bit. Most kids are generally sensible but you often hear horror stories. If you generally have your head on straight and have researched into the matter (cudos for asking btw!) there should be no problems.

For what you can do with just silver, there are a few free games, such as the Dorito games and you can also download game demos, watch iplayer/4od etc and youtube. If you have a netflix subscription, you can also watch shows from there too. Mine is also connected to my NAS server so can watch all my tv shows/movies and listen to music too.

happyhero

Thanks guys for all the help.

So are you on Silver by not paying for Gold, i.e. having the broadband connected as I do now or do I have to do something to get Silver?

It doesn't offer anything but Gold!

Going to have a look at the links you guys gave me now.

gjchester

happyhero wrote: »

Also heard that sometimes you can buy 12 months but get some extra months thrown in free, is that still possible?

Microsoft won't if you buy on the console but often places like CDKeys who were listed before do. Depends what codes are around and what have offers.

happyhero wrote: »

Anything else we need to know about Xbox live if we go for it?

Games with Gold. Microsoft give away two games each month, sometimes they are full retail games, sometimes arcade games, they will never be the latest, (you can see a list here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Games_with_Gold_games) .
You may not like them but its a bit more to think of when you consider the cost.


Think of it as £1.50 a game (or less if you buy a discounted code), and once bought they are yours almost forever, obviously if Microsoft close the service and you have not downloaded them they are lost but you get the idea, you can cancel the gold membership in the future, and go to silver and the games are still yours.


You can also get a game a month for the Xbox one, and "buy" it, but this is slightly this is different in that if you cancel and go to silver then access to the game may be lost,

gjchester

happyhero wrote: »

Thanks guys for all the help.

So are you on Silver by not paying for Gold, i.e. having the broadband connected as I do now or do I have to do something to get Silver?

It doesn't offer anything but Gold!

Going to have a look at the links you guys gave me now.

Silver is free, but most services need Gold. Silver lets you buy new games (Gold gives you a discount sometimes) online, and get updates, but pretty much all the useful parts are gold only, such as online play, online chats, some leaderboards.

mttylad

Get a code via cheapxboxlivecodes.com for £23
Enter that on his account to get him live.

Get a Turtle Beach XC1 headset from say Asda.

You do have a hard drive on it? If not - get the biggest one you can afford - they are available 2nd hand.

Be aware that in some games some players ARE going to use abusive language, it's a fact we cannot get away from. However they can be muted.

That said - Live is brilliant - I never buy a game that does not have it & only ever play live unless it's down (not very often).