XBOX 360 Pro Question

[Tarheels.]

I'm looking into a 360 this year for Christmas and I'm looking at the Pro package. I noticed it has XBOX Live Silver service, but I'm not exactly sure what that is. So yeah, what is it?

[alldaws1]

Silver membership lets you download content from the Xbox Live marketplace (game patches, dashboard themes, gamer pics etc.) whereas a Gold membership lets you play online against others. I don't think the Silver membership ever runs out, whereas a Gold one will after a set amount of time (ie. 12 months if you buy a 12-month subscription).

[Kaney]

Silver = go online and access the XBox Live Marketplace. You can download videos, demos and so on. You can chat to others and stuff like that. Silver is free.

Gold comes in 1 month, 3 month I think, and yearly subscriptions. Gold can do everything Silver can, but you need a Gold account if you want to play others online.

[Tarheels.]

So I'll have to get the gold membership to play online. Another question about live, I'm not exactly sure how it works but my system would be upstairs with my computer downstairs, would that be a problem?

[therockbox]

You'd need to connect it, I use one of their wireless routers and it works fine.

[Tarheels.]

Well damn, $100 for a wireless router, I might have to go to ebay for that one. Thanks for the help though, and if anybody feels like reccomending some games to get I'm already aiming for Gears of War mainly for online play.

[VerbalPuke]

Stupid question here, but does every premium bundle come with X-Box live (silver specifically, that's what I'm most interested in).

I'm getting one today and going to Sam's Club for it.

The package I'm getting

That's the package I'm getting, comes with two wireless controllers and some other gear so it seems like a solid deal. It comes with the ethernet cable and headset so I can assume it has X-box live? I'm not sure because it doesn't explicitly state "yes this comes with X-Box live".

[oldskool]

Every Xbox 360, regardless of bundle, comes with a Silver account. That's a Premium, so you'll get a month of Gold as soon as you set up your gamertag.

[Tarheels.]

If I just got the basic 360 (with the 20 GB hardrive of course) and then got a year of Gold, would I still have silver forever?

[-A-]

Yes. Silver is free, for every 360, forever.

[Farmer Reil]

For all intents and purposes, Silver doesn't actually exist. You don't have to pay for it, or do anything special in order to get it. X-Box Live Silver is just another way of saying "You don't have Gold".

To put it another way, Silver is like being an EWB member. You can do most things any other EWB member can do for free, but you don't have access to the Donators forum (online gaming) or custom titles (the other little extras) unless you donate (buy Gold).

The only difference is, unlike accessing the donators forum, Online gaming is 99% of the reason 99% of people buy X-Box Live in the first place, so that analogy kinda falls apart there, but yeah...

Edited November 18, 2006 by Farmer Reil