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General discussion (archive)new to XBOX 360, need crash course(45 posts)solved(45 posts)solved
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 15, 2011
For starters, I NEVER had a console or used one before.

My wife won an XBOX360 250G Kinect special edition in a contest. I have it for one day now and I'm trying to get used to it.

So far I've got a basic idea of what can be done with it... namely buy a lot of content with some mysterious "microsoft points".

I have a few questions that some more experienced user may answer in order to make my life easier:

1) What is the best way to buy games? Buy discs from a store or buy online and download? What are the advantages/disadvantages of either method? I intend to buy some kinect games but I want to do it the right way.
2) What are the means to acquire microsoft points?
3) What is the advantage of gold membership in windows live? I have a one month trial gold membership and I see that everything has to be bought anyway, so why pay a monthly fee?

Any tips are welcome, including links to community forums/sites.
Thanks.
This question / problem has been solved by spindownimage
Posted July 15, 2011
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iuliand: 3) What is the advantage of gold membership in windows live? I have a one month trial gold membership and I see that everything has to be bought anyway, so why pay a monthly fee?
An arbitrary waiting period before you can check out newly released demos. Inability to play online or voice chat, inability to use any of the websites tied into XBox Live such as Facebook, Twitter, or Netflix.

Basically, you need gold to use most of the features of the system, but those features are only locked out to motivate you to pay. They're free on every other platform.
Posted July 15, 2011
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iuliand: For starters, I NEVER had a console or used one before.

My wife won an XBOX360 250G Kinect special edition in a contest. I have it for one day now and I'm trying to get used to it.

So far I've got a basic idea of what can be done with it... namely buy a lot of content with some mysterious "microsoft points".

I have a few questions that some more experienced user may answer in order to make my life easier:

1) What is the best way to buy games? Buy discs from a store or buy online and download? What are the advantages/disadvantages of either method? I intend to buy some kinect games but I want to do it the right way.
2) What are the means to acquire microsoft points?
3) What is the advantage of gold membership in windows live? I have a one month trial gold membership and I see that everything has to be bought anyway, so why pay a monthly fee?

Any tips are welcome, including links to community forums/sites.
Thanks.
1. second hand games are always cheaper fairly often bricks and morter is cheaper than the downloads even if the games brand new
2. You can use paypal, debit/credit cards or buy points cards in stores (amazon has been known to sell them for half the cost of direct buying)
3. Gold allows you online play and early access to various things (also facebook twitter tv etc are all gold limited) PS3 fans will tell you it's a rip off while admitting that the paid for servers are usually more reliable and asking when sony will add various features from XLG
Posted July 15, 2011
Well, I'll try my best to answer your questions based on my experience with Xbox 360.

1.) The best way to buy games in my opinion is on disc if it comes on a disc. You're more likely to catch a sale and there is generally better pricing on retail discs. You can install disc based games to your hard drive, but you still need the disc in the tray to play it. The games in the Xbox Live Arcade section are the ones to buy as a download since very few of them have ever been released on discs.

2.)The way that I generally purchase Microsoft Points are in pre-paid cards. They usually sell these anywhere that sells Xbox 360 stuff. The pre-paid card will have a code on it that you then redeem online.

3.)A Gold membership is useful in that if you want to play games online with other people, it's required. There are some other perks, but that's the big one. If you don't plan to play online with others, you probably won't need it. You can purchase downloadable games and content without a Gold membership.
Posted July 15, 2011
The decision to buy things on disk or digitally is no different than how it is on PC. Just do whatever you usually do. The only real difference is that now you have the option of buying used.
Posted July 15, 2011
1)I never bought any of the "Games on demand" (I think that's what they're called) because they take way too much space on the hard disk and by the time they get on LIVE they are already cheaper at retail, so I would avoid them if I were you. For Arcade games, you don't really have a choice, they are avaliable only on XBLA. If you ask me, I would buy on XBLA only the stuff that is exclusive to it. However, when you buy something from the store, you can download it as many times as you want, as long as you're logged in with your account (I think), so I'd say it's your call.

2)You buy MS points the same way you would buy anything on the Internet. You have to link one (or more) credit/debit card to your account and whenever you want to buy something, you have the option to "Add Microsoft Points". Essentially, they are simply adding an extra phase to the buying process: you don't buy games/DLCs directly, you buy MS points that you use to get stuff (there are exceptions: if I remember correctly, Games on demand and Gold subscriptions are priced directly in Euros, instead of points. Not 100% sure about it)

3)Gold subscriptions are basically for online play and everything related to it. You have some extra features, like LBartley said, but if you don't care about multiplayer, don't sweat it. You can still do everything single player and buy from the marketplace without any subscription.

Hope that helped and was accurate enough ^^

EDIT: totally ninja'd by KillingMachine T_T
Post edited July 15, 2011 by Bonobo_Power
Posted July 15, 2011
avatar
iuliand: 1) What is the best way to buy games? Buy discs from a store or buy online and download? What are the advantages/disadvantages of either method? I intend to buy some kinect games but I want to do it the right way.
2) What are the means to acquire microsoft points?
3) What is the advantage of gold membership in windows live? I have a one month trial gold membership and I see that everything has to be bought anyway, so why pay a monthly fee?

Any tips are welcome, including links to community forums/sites.
Thanks.
1) Buying discs is definitely the main method to buy games. You can also buy games for download via Xbox Live Games on Demand. However, only a fraction of all games are available for download. Games from Games on Demand are often overpriced, and you can often find the same games much cheaper on physical media (from Amazon etc.). Also, you cannot resell games you bought digitally. They are tied to your account, so if you somehow lose access to your account or the servers go down you also lose access to the games. In short, in my opinion there is no reason to use Games on Demand, except if you are really impatient and want a game nao instead of getting a physical copy.

In addition to regular games, there are also games for Xbox Live Arcade. These can only be bought online and downloaded. These are typically smaller games that sell for 5$ - $15. They can be bought using Microsoft points, which are the currency of Xbox Live.

2) You can buy Microsoft points (MSP) online directly from Microsoft by entering your credit card details on Xbox Live. Be careful though, I think I read that you cannot remove your CC info once you have entered it. For this reason, I prefer buying MSP using prepaid cards which contain a code that can be redeemed for points. You can buy these physically in stores or from online retailers, or you can buy codes online that you receive by e-mail. This is the fastest method. Points can only be bought in fixed amounts, so if you don't use them all you waste some money. Points have a fixed conversion rate to real money. In US dollars, 100 MSP are equivalent to $1.25. Be careful, codes for MSP are region-specific. American Microsoft points can only be used with American profiles etc.

3) Gold membership is required for online multiplayer. You may also get access to some bonus features like Netflix and ESPN, although many of these are exlusive to the US. Gold members also get a weekly discount on some XBLA games and DLC. But it's really mostly the online multiplayer.
Posted July 15, 2011
1. Always buy games on the disc... they are usually MUCH cheaper than what they are being sold for on the Marketplace. The indie games & Arcade games are a different story however... they are only available via the Marketplace so if you see something that you want there go ahead & get it.

2. You can get the points in a variety of places. Walmart, Game stores, Online, Hell... you can even find them at gas stations. If you have a credit card, you can also purchase them straight from the source.

3. You get to play online & download demos a week earlier... Silver only lets you buy things & send messages to your friends. If you aren't a online kind of guy (like myself), then there really is no need in it.
Posted July 15, 2011
Oau! Very nice info to chew on.
THANK YOU ALL!

So, the games sold on physical copies can be bought/sold used. That's great info. I was afraid that they are somehow activated at first use and tied to the console.

About the MSP codes being region specific, how do I know to which region my profile is allocated? The console itself was delivered directly from Microsoft US (Redmond) (with 110V brick, but that's another story...) and at the initial setup I chose the Locale as being US, because Romania was not present in the list. Can any of this influence my region for my profile? How can I check this?
Post edited July 15, 2011 by iuliand
Posted July 15, 2011
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iuliand: Oau! Very nice info to chew on.
THANK YOU ALL!

So, the games sold on physical copies can be bought/sold used. That's great info. I was afraid that they are somehow activated at first use and tied to the console.

About the MSP being region specific, how do I know to which region my profile is allocated? The console itself was delivered directly from Microsoft US (Redmond) (with 110V brick, but that's another story...) and at the initial setup I chose the Locale as being US, because Romania was not present in the list. Can any of this influence my region for my profile? How can I check this?
Well, some publishers are trying to fight used game sales by having features that can only be activated once, like online multiplayer in sports games or DLC. If you buy the game used, you have to pay extra to get access to that content. But most games are not like that, luckily, so you can buy and sell used games.

The Microsoft points are tied to the account you activate them on, not the console. So the region you select in your console's setup shouldn't matter. However, when you create an online account you have to specify a country, which determines what kind of codes you can use. Be careful, you can *never* change the country after you have entered it originally. You could theoretically set up a US account to benefit from the favorable Euro/Dollar exchange rate, although it is technically against the Terms & Conditions and could get your profile banned, although I believe they don't actually do that. (Making modifications to the hardware will get your console banned, however.)
Posted July 15, 2011
Is there any way to check the country that I chose for my profile? because I don't remember what is the setting that I've made.
Posted July 15, 2011
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iuliand: Is there any way to check the country that I chose for my profile? because I don't remember what is the setting that I've made.
You probably only have an offline profile so far if you have never taken your console online. If so, you haven't chosen a country yet. You can convert your offline profile into an online profile when you connect to Xbox live. Then you will have to enter additional information like your address, birthday etc.
Posted July 15, 2011
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iuliand: Is there any way to check the country that I chose for my profile? because I don't remember what is the setting that I've made.
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spindown: You probably only have an offline profile so far if you have never taken your console online. If so, you haven't chosen a country yet. You can convert your offline profile into an online profile when you connect to Xbox live. Then you will have to enter additional information like your address, birthday etc.
I'd like to add, that if you can't change it you can always make a new one with your correct country. In addition to my US account, I used to have a profile from England & Japan as well. It really isn't a big deal.
Posted July 15, 2011
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iuliand: Is there any way to check the country that I chose for my profile? because I don't remember what is the setting that I've made.
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spindown: You probably only have an offline profile so far if you have never taken your console online. If so, you haven't chosen a country yet. You can convert your offline profile into an online profile when you connect to Xbox live. Then you will have to enter additional information like your address, birthday etc.
Already did that but it was yesterday late in the night and I don't remember much... :( I remember that I was asked a lot of questions like password, birthday, secret question... and them my profile name was changed.

edit: I remember the stuff that seemed important like the password and the question, but I don't remember anything about the country setting.
Post edited July 15, 2011 by iuliand
Posted July 15, 2011
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spindown: You probably only have an offline profile so far if you have never taken your console online. If so, you haven't chosen a country yet. You can convert your offline profile into an online profile when you connect to Xbox live. Then you will have to enter additional information like your address, birthday etc.
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Roberttitus: I'd like to add, that if you can't change it you can always make a new one with your correct country. In addition to my US account, I used to have a profile from England & Japan as well. It really isn't a big deal.
That's true, but there's a whole lot of stuff connected to your account like your nickname, game licenses, friends, achievements, gamerscore etc. So you shouldn't take it too lightly if you care about that kind of stuff.
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General discussion (archive)new to XBOX 360, need crash course(45 posts)solved(45 posts)solved
(45 posts)solved