Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@Yosheel The Xbox One games are for rent (and only work with an active Live subscription), and can subsequently be bought to keep at a discount, if you choose to do so, but the Xbox 360 games are for keeps, yours forever, even offline and/or without Xbox Live Gold.

I see, thanks! I'll keep an eye on that games with gold page to see if anything interesting enough to make me buy a sub comes up.

When I do but an Xbox it will likely come with a free subscription trial though. Probably.

@Yosheel You're welcome. One thing you could already do, is make a Microsoft account, if you haven't got one yet, that'll allow you to sign in to the Games with Gold page. And of course, you'll need an account tied to your console, once you have it. Can also be an email account. I for example, have simply connected my Gmail account to my Xbox 360 and Xbox One. Create an account by clicking on "Sign in" in the top right corner of the Xbox homepage:
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/

And also good to know: I've connected my PayPal account to my console for transactions, but a credit card will also do, obviously.

Both are also used for the free games, not because there's some kind of hidden fee, but simply because they need to make a receipt/invoice for you, which is your "proof of purchase" and will get archived on your account, as evidence that you own the games, as long as you have an Xbox Live account (in the case of the Xbox One games)

Oh, and if you prefer smart phone apps, there's also an official Xbox app, in which you can also do all these things. But personally, I prefer the website, and once you have your console, you can simply select the free games from the Games with Gold page that's on there.

@ThanosReXXX Ok then, I'll start sometime after X018. It'll no doubt have Gears 5 info so I'll let the Gears 5 release date decide when I start. For Gears 5 release date I'm guessing Spring if Scarlett is 2019 or Fall if Scarlett is 2020.

@Yosheel Trial subscriptions are usually not more than one month, though. Will probably also come with a month of Game Pass, as did mine. In case you're wondering: Game Pass is a digital library pass, which will allow you access to ALL of the Xbox games, old and new, so if you'd have an Xbox One with Game Pass now, you would be able to play Forza Horizon 4 and Red Dead Redemption 2 without actually having to buy the games, for as long as the Game Pass subscription is active.

But getting to those Xbox Live subscriptions: they can be stacked, so if you get one month with the console, you can just add the twelve months that you would buy from CD Keys or elsewhere.

@Grumblevolcano That should give you more than enough time to play through the solo missions, which by the way are also really enjoyable to do in co-op mode. Most of them aren't overly long anyway, but the story is cool enough, in a slightly over-exaggerated, tough guy kinda way. (as in: Hollywood action hero-like)

The multi-player and party games (as I like to call them) are where the longevity of the games is at.
Capture the flag and battling growing waves of alien scum never gets old, far as I'm concerned, especially because the weapons and ways to deal with aliens are so nice and meaty, and sometimes absolutely hilarious, in my opinion.

@Grumblevolcano What do you mean about the latest update fixing external drives being slow? Despite all the new problems external drives have experienced for me, particularly on one of my two machines (the one is still fine, the other is still a mess, but with the official XBox drive, at least that one doesn't spin up the drive anymore, it just hits the controller), I've never had speed issues with them. 250/300MB/s with local copies from one xbox to the other, or from local drive to local drive across externals. Seems to be maxing the USB3 spec, and I haven't seen any changes in the new patch.

@ThanosReXXX I was thinking, if it comes with a trial then I could save the trial and start it on a month with free games/sales I'd like. Assuming it's not one of those "it starts as soon as you log in" kinda trial.

I do have an xbox account, we did have a 360 back in the day, and I currently use it mostly to play minecraft. It's tied to my overall microsoft account, and I have paypal linked to it.

@ThanosReXXX @Yosheel Just to prevent confusion, GamePass does not grant access to the whole XBox library like Netflix. Just to a rotating selection of ~100 games. It includes all new first party Microsoft games starting with Sea of Thieves onward, and they've been occasionally adding some older exclusives in from time to time as well, such as Halo MCC, but no chance RDR2 is on there for years if ever. The 1st party games are a solid lure to the subscription, but 3rd parties generally only put games on there if they're not selling as great as they'd like, especially if they're online games, and a good chunk of the library is x360 games.

@Yosheel Well, the subscription or trial gets activated by redeeming the code that is printed on the card, so once you've done that, it starts the countdown, but not by simply logging into a console or site with your account. Once it's active, you can't freeze it halfway, though, so better pick a good month, with plenty of free time, then, if you're going to stick to that one month only.

That is why I buy my subscriptions from CD Keys. That $40 - $50 for 12 months is already earning itself back in the first two to three months of Games with Gold, seeing as you're getting 2 Xbox One and 2 Xbox 360 games every month.

Well good news! My Xbox One X arrived today. Just set it up and downloading Forza Horizon 4 and Forza 7 (the latter I was not aware was part of the bundle). Also installing Red Dead Redemption 2 now so there is a lot to get stuck in playing

@NEStalgia Ah, my bad. But at least for most of the time, the more visible/recent titles, from what I've seen so far, so in that regard, it could still be interesting for some people.

If more people have issues with the controls, RDR2 might be going down in sales soon enough, though...

By the way, and totally off-topic: I've noticed you're absolutely slaying your own text wall record in the "Nintendo Confirms That There Are Now More Than 1,300 Games Available On Switch" article.

And here I was, thinking that your text walls in this forum topic were already big enough to begin with...

@NEStalgia Before the current update it would take awhile for the XB1 to notice the external drive is plugged in. Now it's pretty much instant.

@FragRed Have fun!
Don't know if you already have an Xbox Live subscription yet, but if a trial subscription came in the box with it, you can still grab the free games from this month:
https://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/games-with-gold

I'd keep an eye on the CD Keys website as well, for cheap 12 month Xbox Live subscriptions:
http://www.cdkeys.com/xbox-live/memberships
They have various offers almost every month, so well worth checking out from time to time.

@ThanosReXXX I don't think the control issues will slow down the hype-driven sales of RDR2 any time soon. I do think they may want to fix it just to keep the talk positive, but right now it's the thing to have because everyone else has it. And gaming has quite the herd mentality. Though in this case it's still mostly deserved.

LOL, yeah, sometimes it takes 1000 words to explain what everyone doesn't understand from the first 500 You know how that goes! Plus when responding to several people at a time the single wall always looks bigger than each personal reply!

@FragRed Awesome that Motorsport 7 was included too, that's a heck of a bundle! In some ways Motorsport is better than Horizon...or..rather, was, but Horizon 4 seems to borrow a lot of physics additions from 7 making it the better one again I'm not even a racing fan and I love 7 though

Also, keep eyes peeled for Black Friday XBL/GP subscription discounts. Sony and MS both tend to have good sales. Plus X018 in a week or two. Usually big sales run during big conferences.

@Grumblevolcano, oh, now I know what you mean. I didn't realize the new update changed that (and that is probably how they broke the power state that plagues me now! ) But I do recall it was pretty delayed between plugging in a drive and it getting detected before. You must use Power Saver mode if that affects you? In Instant-on it's always been running as soon as I power on. Actually, even in total reboots, though, it would be up when the machine came up before, it was only delayed if I plugged the drive in after it was booted.

@ThanosReXXX @NEStalgia Thanks for the advice!! I’ll get the free Gold subscription trial started and get them free games right away!

Yeah actually I forgot to play RDR2 as I just jumped straight into Horizon 4 to see how it looked/played and wow. That game is just stunning. Not a racing fan myself but I see why everyone really likes it. I’ll try my hand at Forza 7 next. Then I’ll get round to RDR2.

Also thank you for the advice on Black Friday deals and great about CD Keys - I’ll keep a look out for cheap Xbox Love subscriptions.

@FragRed haha, yeah, the Forza series really hooks you, doesn't it? The last racing game that pulled me in was nfs most wanted U. Which was made by criterion. A lot of those guys are at playground making Forza horizon now

@NEStalgia I never knew that, I know a lot of ex Codemasters people are at Playground Games but I guess it all makes sense as all three studios are known for their racing games so they should be able to pull it off - I would be surprised if they hadn't actually. Yeah I loved the old Burnout games and Need for Speed titles. I still have Need for Speed 3 on CD for PC, doubt it works though haha.

You are right, Horizon 4 really gets its claws into you. It's a good thing I have a 3 day weekend up ahead. I think I'm gonna need it. Think Diablo 3 on Switch is going to be kept in it's wrapping for a while... along with the Batman: Animated Series boxset I pre-ordered.

@FragRed the telltale set is like a sealed babe ruth baseball card, isn't it?

@FragRed You're welcome. Hope you enjoy the games.