Imagine you’re talking to a seven year old child here, because I’m clueless.
I’ve never been all that interested in multiplayer or anything like that, but what with an upcoming Mass Effect 2 DLC (with Liara - once you go blue, you don’t want new) has piqued my interest in all the content I’ve been missing.
But I don’t know where to start…I’ve got a ‘gold membership’ thing or some other such horsecrap after my Xbox went off to get repaired, is that useful at all? Do I need any special bits and pieces (I’ve got a wireless network, if that helps)? Is payment for DLCs easy (I got all the Fallout 3 DLCs, but hated dealing with all that Microsoft points crap)?
Gold membership ($50 a year or so) is only needed to play games online and for certain other things like streaming Netflix.
Silver will give you the ability to access DLC, including getting games and demos through XBL Arcade. It also allows you to get patches and other things. So if you never plan on turning your XBOX into a streaming multimedia and/or online gaming platform don’t bother with Gold for now. (Though, I know they frequently give you a free trial of Gold when you buy a new one, get it repaired, etc.)
As far as DLC’s and XBL Arcade downloads that you need to purchase, you still have to go through MS points to do so. But I didn’t find it all that difficult. It’s pretty easy to purchase online through the Zune site, which is directly linked to your XBL account.
Thanks for the replies fellas, I’ve just hooked it in to my wireless router (fortunately I have a cable lying around, and it just about reaches). It’s installing updates now or somesuch, so at least I know its working. Not sure about the Special Electronic Internet Chicken, that sounds expensive!
@ Hoopy Frood, thanks for the clarification on the gold/silver/whatever membership. I’ve got a gold one doing nothing since it’s come back from repairs, but since I don’t give a rat’s ass about anything but DLCs should I not bother activating it?
I think I’ve got an Xbox game-live-whatever account, the one with MS Points on it - used it on Games For Windows Live for Fallout 3 DLC, and was reliably informed at the time that it’s the same thing used for Xbox live. I think I’ve got 100 or so points left on it, but I’ll be damned if I can remember either my username or password - I’m trying to open up GFWL client to do a trial and error to log on (and get more points that was, was how I did it last time), but the damn client seems to be frozen or something. Says ‘Automatic Updates’, and won’t let me enter anything…
Why do they make things so difficult for Luddites, I don’t know…
Never mind - figured it out! First I set up a new gamertag with the same name as my GFWL one, which seemed to work until the end when it through up an error message. What you need to do, for any other hapless monkeys out there, is go to switch gamertag/recover, then enter the same details. So I’m apparently finally signed up (and with my GFWL account, as it has the same number of achievement points, before I disabled that nonsense, and only one game in the profile)! Let’s see if I can download anything…
Downloading should be the easy part. You just pick what you want to download from the list, select “Buy now” and it devours the appropriate number of Microsoft Fortune Cookies and your download kicks off.
You’re also flagged as owning that bit of stuff forever, so if you delete it in a fit of pique (or your hard drive dies) you can get it again for free.
Thanks Airk, for the moment it (seems) to be working; Mass Effect 2 uses a kind of internal download-y thing called Cerberus Network, so I selected all the free DLC that comes with a new game. It send ‘pending’ for ages until I quit out to the dashboard, so who knows what’s going on there.
Since it’s linked with my GFWL account I’m gonna put some points on via the client and hope it registers…