Thinking about purchasing my friend's Xbox 360

krapst78

I'm thinking about purchasing my friend's Xbox 360 Elite. He has had it for around 4 months and has probably used it maybe 10 times. I was wondering what type of headaches I would encounter when buying a used Xbox. I am interested in playing online so I'd definitely activate an Xbox Live gold account. The problem is that he already has an xbox live gold account. He's also purchased a couple games through the xbox live store. The questions I have regarding a used xbox 360 are:

1. Are xbox live gold account tied to a machine?

2. If so, is it possible to have more than one xbox live gold account tied to the machine?

3. If so and I create my own xbox live gold account, what happens to the games that my friend purchased and downloaded to the machine using his original account once I start logging in with my new account?

Gdiguy

krapst78 wrote: »

I'm thinking about purchasing my friend's Xbox 360 Elite. He has had it for around 4 months and has probably used it maybe 10 times. I was wondering what type of headaches I would encounter when buying a used Xbox. I am interested in playing online so I'd definitely activate an Xbox Live gold account. The problem is that he already has an xbox live gold account. He's also purchased a couple games through the xbox live store. The questions I have regarding a used xbox 360 are:

1. Are xbox live gold account tied to a machine?

2. If so, is it possible to have more than one xbox live gold account tied to the machine?

3. If so and I create my own xbox live gold account, what happens to the games that my friend purchased and downloaded to the machine using his original account once I start logging in with my new account?

1) No; purchases are tied to a machine, live gold accounts can be used on any 360 (just requires downloading your profile, which can take an obscenely long 5-10 minutes)

2) yep, MS would love you to have 80 live accounts per 360

3) This gets a little tricky; assuming you keep the hard drive, then the games should still work on that machine regardless of what account you're logged into. However, if you ever have to send the 360 in for replacement, you may have issues getting them to migrate the licenses (although if they migrate it to the new serial # it should work just fine, if they don't do it then you won't be able to use them unless you log into live on your friend's old account, which you obviously won't have)

Willeth

I'd dsy go ahead and do it, but definitely start your own Live account instead of using his. You'll be able to use all the content he purchased and if it gets replaced and won't work any more, just get him to sign into xbox.com and transfer the licences.

Luthz

Gdiguy wrote: »

krapst78 wrote: »

I'm thinking about purchasing my friend's Xbox 360 Elite. He has had it for around 4 months and has probably used it maybe 10 times. I was wondering what type of headaches I would encounter when buying a used Xbox. I am interested in playing online so I'd definitely activate an Xbox Live gold account. The problem is that he already has an xbox live gold account. He's also purchased a couple games through the xbox live store. The questions I have regarding a used xbox 360 are:

1. Are xbox live gold account tied to a machine?

2. If so, is it possible to have more than one xbox live gold account tied to the machine?

3. If so and I create my own xbox live gold account, what happens to the games that my friend purchased and downloaded to the machine using his original account once I start logging in with my new account?

1) No; purchases are tied to a machine, live gold accounts can be used on any 360 (just requires downloading your profile, which can take an obscenely long 5-10 minutes)

2) yep, MS would love you to have 80 live accounts per 360

3) This gets a little tricky; assuming you keep the hard drive, then the games should still work on that machine regardless of what account you're logged into. However, if you ever have to send the 360 in for replacement, you may have issues getting them to migrate the licenses (although if they migrate it to the new serial # it should work just fine, if they don't do it then you won't be able to use them unless you log into live on your friend's old account, which you obviously won't have)

#1 is wrong, purchases are tied both to accounts AND machines. If you purchase, say, a ticket to ride on a console, all accounts can play that game on that console permanently, even if the purchasing account is deleted, and on the purchasing account on any other console, but not other accounts on the other consoles once downloaded.

Willeth

Luthz wrote: »

Gdiguy wrote: »

krapst78 wrote: »

I'm thinking about purchasing my friend's Xbox 360 Elite. He has had it for around 4 months and has probably used it maybe 10 times. I was wondering what type of headaches I would encounter when buying a used Xbox. I am interested in playing online so I'd definitely activate an Xbox Live gold account. The problem is that he already has an xbox live gold account. He's also purchased a couple games through the xbox live store. The questions I have regarding a used xbox 360 are:

1. Are xbox live gold account tied to a machine?

2. If so, is it possible to have more than one xbox live gold account tied to the machine?

3. If so and I create my own xbox live gold account, what happens to the games that my friend purchased and downloaded to the machine using his original account once I start logging in with my new account?

1) No; purchases are tied to a machine, live gold accounts can be used on any 360 (just requires downloading your profile, which can take an obscenely long 5-10 minutes)

2) yep, MS would love you to have 80 live accounts per 360

3) This gets a little tricky; assuming you keep the hard drive, then the games should still work on that machine regardless of what account you're logged into. However, if you ever have to send the 360 in for replacement, you may have issues getting them to migrate the licenses (although if they migrate it to the new serial # it should work just fine, if they don't do it then you won't be able to use them unless you log into live on your friend's old account, which you obviously won't have)

#1 is wrong, purchases are tied both to accounts AND machines. If you purchase, say, a ticket to ride on a console, all accounts can play that game on that console permanently, even if the purchasing account is deleted, and on the purchasing account on any other console, but not other accounts on the other consoles once downloaded.

With the caveat that if you are on a machine that is not the original, you can only play that content when connected to Live.

JNighthawk

Gdiguy wrote: »

krapst78 wrote: »

I'm thinking about purchasing my friend's Xbox 360 Elite. He has had it for around 4 months and has probably used it maybe 10 times. I was wondering what type of headaches I would encounter when buying a used Xbox. I am interested in playing online so I'd definitely activate an Xbox Live gold account. The problem is that he already has an xbox live gold account. He's also purchased a couple games through the xbox live store. The questions I have regarding a used xbox 360 are:

1. Are xbox live gold account tied to a machine?

2. If so, is it possible to have more than one xbox live gold account tied to the machine?

3. If so and I create my own xbox live gold account, what happens to the games that my friend purchased and downloaded to the machine using his original account once I start logging in with my new account?

1) No; purchases are tied to a machine, live gold accounts can be used on any 360 (just requires downloading your profile, which can take an obscenely long 5-10 minutes)

2) yep, MS would love you to have 80 live accounts per 360

3) This gets a little tricky; assuming you keep the hard drive, then the games should still work on that machine regardless of what account you're logged into. However, if you ever have to send the 360 in for replacement, you may have issues getting them to migrate the licenses (although if they migrate it to the new serial # it should work just fine, if they don't do it then you won't be able to use them unless you log into live on your friend's old account, which you obviously won't have)

Also, there's some automated doo-hickey on the web to migrate licenses now.