Live Gold required?

Welease

Basic question, but I want to be sure before I order it online, and the XBox site is not clear (and the other threads are not all that clear either)..

Live "free"and Live Gold both specify that you can play online games..

Do I need to purchase GOLD in order to play MW3, GOW3 online etc? or will the standard free Live be enough? (I'm not interested in Sky, movies or any of the other features)

spix

Yes you have to pay for xbox live gold in order to play any games on xbox live.

Its a rip off really considering online gaming everywhere else is free. Xbox live silver is completely useless.

This is one of the reasons why I use ps network over xbox live. I rarely ever play on it but when I want to, I can. I've paid for a couple of xbox live subscriptions but I would say I probably played only a week out of the 3 months.

NeitherJohn

spix wrote: »

Yes you have to pay for xbox live gold in order to play any games on xbox live.

Its a rip off really considering online gaming everywhere else is free. Xbox live silver is completely useless.

This is one of the reasons why I use ps network over xbox live. I rarely ever play on it but when I want to, I can. I've paid for a couple of xbox live subscriptions but I would say I probably played only a week out of the 3 months.

OP, you need a gold sub to play the vast vast majority of online games. I'm not aware of any games that work on Silver.

@spix, It's hardly a rip off. Depending where you get the code, it costs about 12 cent a day. It's far more reliable than the PSN as well. I like how it just works.

Welease

Excellent.. thanks for the clarification folks..

I'm used to paying monthly subs to MMO's (€10-15 per month) , so to me €35 or so for a year seems cheap But obviously if i didn't need it, the money would be better off in my pocket..

Arawn

spix wrote: »

Yes you have to pay for xbox live gold in order to play any games on xbox live.

Its a rip off really considering online gaming everywhere else is free. Xbox live silver is completely useless.

This is one of the reasons why I use ps network over xbox live. I rarely ever play on it but when I want to, I can. I've paid for a couple of xbox live subscriptions but I would say I probably played only a week out of the 3 months.

That was probably when xbox was hacked, microsoft lied about it and it was down for a month......wait a minute that never happened to live.



Op live is compltetely worth the money.

spix

It's only worth the money if you plan to play on it ALOT. If I buy a game on xbox 360 now and I want to try out the multiplayer I have to pay for an xbox live subscription regardless of how long I intend to play on it. Its not worth it for me, maybe for others. The ps network outage didn't bother me, I rarely play on it at all but as I said, when I want to.. I can.. without having to worry about paying for a subscription.

NeitherJohn

Fair enough if the PSN outage didn't bother you but it probably bothered the other 77 million PSN members at the time! Don't forget that it was down for the bones of a month and a half, and this also prevented access to services like NetFlix. These users were also prevented from playing games downloaded from the Playstation Store because online DRM checks could not be performed.

I've been on XBox live for over 4 years now, and I don't recall any time where it's been offline for more than two days. Even during those two days, there are constant updates on forums.xbox.com and on MajorNelson (XBox Live director of programming) blog. Sony waited weeks before releasing proper information about what had happened and when they expect to restore services.

I don't mind paying the years subscription for that kind of support. I was skeptical at first about signing up, but jaysus I wouldn't be without it now for COD online!

CiDeRmAn

XBLA is a much better service than PSN, it's faster, more reliable and a lot easier to use.
I mean, PSN has even gone down the subscription route themselves with the PSN+ bollox, and that's probably a precursor to a complete subscription service, with the original PSN service being akin to the free Silver XBL.

Vicxas

Ive played XBL and PSN and PSN is at best, laggy and slow. Yes Xbox live is 59.99 but its worth it.

bucks73

Yep worth every penny and available for around €40-45 if you shop around online.

NORTH1

Some people here think I'm anti microsoft, but the truth is xbox live is a great service, and well worth the money you pay. Like most services they can get things wrong, but if you ignore the fan boys I have found microsoft to do the right thing nearly every time.

So compared to what else is out there Xbox live is the best.

North

John mac

Hi all, just a quick question. I set up xbox live for a neighbour last week. (thanks for the sticky about router settings)

they have transformers and would like to play it in multiplayer mode.
I couldn't get it working .
Is it available to play using the live free play ?
they have a gold 1 year code, should they go on using this ?

Thanks J

spix

Yes they have to enter their 1 year live gold code to play any online multiplayer.

Pretty much 100 percent of people who sign up to xbox live do so to play games online so I don't understand why the free xbox live service exists :S

John mac

Thanks . just what i needed ..

Arawn

spix wrote: »

Yes they have to enter their 1 year live gold code to play any online multiplayer.

Pretty much 100 percent of people who sign up to xbox live do so to play games online so I don't understand why the free xbox live service exists :S

they occaisionally give free live weekends. Prob show people how **** it compares to gold!

Vicxas

Its for people who want to be seen online.... but not actually play online

Mossess

I've had the gold version for years. But don't play that often, and usually not multiplayer. Don't have the time these days.
Renewal is in Dec/Jan, is there any point? would like to rent films once I get a router issue sorted, can this be done on the silver? And can you down load demo games on the silver?
(why on earth was I paying for that service? - memo to self, review all outgoings to MS)