Whats good about XBOX 360 Live??

gazzer

I was one of the lucky people to get an XBOX 360 in the Dunnes Stores sale last week. To be honest I wanted to get an Nintendo Wii but couldnt pass up such a good deal and I am glad now I didnt as I have had great fun playing the games I bought over the last few days.. (games look great when played on my 42" TV )

Anyway I havnt even looked at the features of X BOX Live so I was wondering if anybody here could point me in the direction of websites that give information about it??

I have a broadband connection but it is in my bedroom and the connection is not a wireless one. The XBOX is downstairs in the sitting room. Would I be right in saying that I need to connect the XBOX to the modem upstairs through an ethernet connection.. i.e I wont be able to access XBOX Live downstairs and so will have to bring the console upstairs to where my modem is??

Also can you download games to play through XBOX live or do you have to pay for any games you get??

Thanks

Gazzer

jester77

You say you have a modem upstairs. Most modems have just one connection, you would need to attach a router to the modem and run a cable from the router to the 360 or alternatively get a wireless router and purchase the wireless usb adaptor for the 360 but this is expensive.

Why would the games be free? Developers have bills to pay as well. There are around 60-70 games on arcade live that you can download and they cost between 400 and 1200 points. You can buy points in the store or online direct from MS, 2000 points cost €24. You can download trial versions of all these arcade games plus you can download demos for alot of the 360 games that are currently on the market.

mickoneill30

gazzer wrote:

Also can you download games to play through XBOX live or do you have to pay for any games you get??

You can download plenty of game demos on Live for free (I've a silver/free account) and game videos (check out the latest Halo 3 and COD4 videos, they look cool).
There are lots of smaller games on Xbox Live Arcade. These are games you can't buy in the shops but some of them are classics (Bomberman came out yesterday, Pitfall is out a while, Speedball is due soon). You can purchase these using Microsoft points and they're cheaper than games in the shops (about a tenner) but they're not as glamerous.

For the network I've got a couple of Homeplugs. Similar to this http://cgi.ebay.ie/2-x-Solwise-85Mbps-Homeplug-Ethernet-Network-Over-Mains_W0QQitemZ260138023084QQihZ016QQcategoryZ40995QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Works great. There's a 14Mb/s model too which would be cheaper and fine for games but not so fine if you want to stream movies.

gazzer

Thanks everybody.

I meant to say game demos rather than games in my original post

cedomination

There are some nice demos,be sure to get dead rising,brilliant game!

Dades

I had the same setup as you for a while - Xbox downstairs, modem upstairs.

I bought a €15 network card for my PC, and ran an ethernet directly from that, down the stairs, into the Xbox (crossover cable I think). My BB modem was using a USB connection, however, although I'm sure you could have an ethernet modem in and install a second network card to share the signal out.

Obviously wireless would be less of a pain, but I've no idea how you'd go about it!

hotnipples

you HAVE to buy crackdown. its ****ing UNREAL

PeakOutput

can you use 3v vouchers on xbox live to pay subscription and to buy points?

Fingleberries

mickoneill30 wrote:

For the network I've got a couple of Homeplugs. Similar to this http://cgi.ebay.ie/2-x-Solwise-85Mbps-Homeplug-Ethernet-Network-Over-Mains_W0QQitemZ260138023084QQihZ016QQcategoryZ40995QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
Works great. There's a 14Mb/s model too which would be cheaper and fine for games but not so fine if you want to stream movies.

Mick - do these work if you have an extension cord, or do they have to be plugged directly in the mains? I've heard rumours that they don't work great (or possibly at all) through an Extension Cord, and that put me off buying them. But if they work, I'll pick them up ... I've seen them in PC World, too.

PeakOutput wrote:

Can you use 3v vouchers

Yes, you can and it works fine. I've done this myself. The only downside I've seen is that it keeps a list of the Credit Cards you've used, and since they only last three months or so you may end up with a large list of Credit Cards. There's no easy way to remove a Credit Card.

You can also buy Points for pretty much the same price as a pre-paid card in most places that stock games (HMV, GameStop, Game, etc.)

Oirthir

PeakOutput wrote:

can you use 3v vouchers on xbox live to pay subscription and to buy points?

You can buy subscriptions & MS Points in stores like GAME and Virgin, so even if they don't take 3V, it shouldn't be a problem

PeakOutput

Oirthir wrote:

You can buy subscriptions & MS Points in stores like GAME and Virgin, so even if they don't take 3V, it shouldn't be a problem

cool thanks