xbox 360 live

[shoney]

Please help! My 10 year old has been begging for this...you know "all my friends have it"! I am at a loss for an Easter gift so I was thinking of giving this in his easter basket.

We have xbox 360 and a wireless router. What do I need to buy? What is necessary and what is "extra"?

Also, what type of safety controls does it have? I really don't want him playing with strangers. I do have some concerns.

Any thoughts.

 

[dturner]

Please help! My 10 year old has been begging for this...you know "all my friends have it"! I am at a loss for an Easter gift so I was thinking of giving this in his easter basket.

We have xbox 360 and a wireless router. What do I need to buy? What is necessary and what is "extra"?

Also, what type of safety controls does it have? I really don't want him playing with strangers. I do have some concerns.

Any thoughts.

Since you have a wireless router you need the plug in for the XBOX360 so it can pick up the signal - I think it's around $60.00. We don't have wireless so DS(14) just plugs the internet into his XBOX360 when he's playing online.

You'll also need to purchase a card to pay for monthly online play or you can go online to XBOX.com and set up a monthly charge to a credit card, it's
$8.59/month which is how I do it.

I'm not sure of the safety controls (never looked for any) but I do monitor his friends online - I can bring up his account at work and see who he's playing with or who is on his friends list. DS(14) has been online for a couple of years now and we haven't had any problems with anyone he's played with.

 

[shoney]

Thanks! The router is located in a utility room right next to the xbox. If I just ran a cord, it wouldn't be that bad and would save me 60.00!

What about the headset for it? Do you need that?

 

[Mrs. Charming]

You can definitely run the cable, it's a better signal
You don't need the headset, but if he wants to go online and play with his friends, it's probably something he wants. You can get a decent deal on the xbox live gold subscription, a "good" deal is about $35-40 (usually through ebay/buy.com, buy.com, or amazon) and under. If you pay monthly (automatically billed) it's about 8.99/month for the Gold subscription. It might be worth it for you to try it for one month and test the waters to see how *you* feel about it. If you're ok with it, and I don't think there would be a problem, then go ahead and buy the subscription. DH is on it often, and a lot of the people on there seem to be teenagers, DH feels like an old fart when he's on there playing with his adult buddies. Haha, one time he was on there when DD was first born, and he exited the game and said his kid was crying and some other younger player said "Ohhh man, you got a kid?" to which DH replied "And a wife..." That made us chuckle.

 

[shoney]

you guys are so much help! I am clueless!

What cable do I need? I have an old computer that we never use that is hooked up to the router. Can I just take it off the computer and put it in the xbox?

 

[dawson5]

You can buy the gold card online at walmart and do the in-store pickup. They charge $40 + tax. You just missed a great newegg deal for $35, no tax or shipping.

I think our xbox came with a basic headset. I think it broke within the first week. Two of mine have invested in their own headsets, one has the wireless earpiece from microsoft. I think those run around $65-70. The other is a turtle beach one that was about the same amount. It is wired though.

My boys all have their own live accounts. We keep the xbox in the office with the doors open. There are all kinds on there playing. You do get reputation points, if someone is a bonehead, you can "ding" their reputation. If someone is particularly foul, my kids put them on a block list. They are also quick to tell people who cuss a lot or say questionable things, that their mom or dad is in the room, usually puts a stop to things quickly.

As for the wireless, it's only as good as your router. We have a 10ft ethernet cord running from the router to the game.

 

[cvjw]

My 10 year old and all of his friends play on XBOX live. He buys the card from Target for the one year subscription for like $50. He mainly just plays online with his friends - they know each others user names.

 

[Mrs. Charming]

you guys are so much help! I am clueless!

What cable do I need? I have an old computer that we never use that is hooked up to the router. Can I just take it off the computer and put it in the xbox?

It's an ethernet cable Yep, you can plug the xbox straight from the router into the xbox.

 

[Nicolepa]

Xbox 360 has excellent parental controls. Visit Xbox's site for complete details.

When you setup your xbox live account, you can setup a child account. This places additional restriction which help protect your child.

www.xbox.com/en-US/support/familysettings/live/xbox360/xboxlivecontrols.htm

My 7 year old can play online, but not with the headset. Many games match you with other players online, not just your friends and the language used isn't always kid friendly. You have the option to enable the headset or direct all chat to the main speakers. (You can still use the headset to talk.) If you switch chat to the main speakers, you can monitor what is being spoken.

Xbox offers two account types. Gold and silver.

Gold enables you to play online and view movies from Netflix if you have a Netflix account.

Silver is free. With the free account you can purchase items from the games and video marketplace. What I love about the games marketplace is Xbox Live games cost between 5 and 15 dollars and the library has hundreds of great games that are kid friendly. You can download a free trial versions of all Xbox Live Games and many full games. This allows you as a parent to checkout the game before making a purchase.

Games can be downloaded to the xbox 360's hard drive or memory card. On April 6th there will be an update to xbox that will allow games to be saved to a standard usb flash drive.

 

[shoney]

Thank you!

I purchased the 1 year gold membership...but did not get the headset. We figured we would let him try this out and then if he really wants a headset than he could purchase it with his own money.

I appreciate the parental control advice...I will certainly be looking into this.

 

[dawson5]

Didn't want to start a new thread, bumping an old.

Newegg has the 12 month Live/Gold membership for $35, no tax or shipping.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...410-Index-_-Xbox360Accessories-_-74103129-L0H

(If link doesn't work correctly, let me know and I'll try to post the newsletter link which should take you directly to the page.)

 

[JB2K]

You'll also need to purchase a card to pay for monthly online play or you can go online to XBOX.com and set up a monthly charge to a credit card, it's $8.59/month which is how I do it.

Or, if that's not your thing, you can pre-pay for a month's service -- prepaid XBOX 360 cards are available at most all retail stores.

Also, if the 10 y/o needs this to play "Call of Duty, Part 26", do remember those type games are rated "M" for a reason...

 

[auralia]

you can buy a one year xbox live card at any major store for 50$ it is a better deal then monthly! it might be 60 now but still better than 9 a month. you will need a wirless bridge for the 360 i believe they charge 100$ for the microsoft one new or if your 360 is close enough to your router you can plug it in direct (this is what i do).

 

[Planogirl]

What if you have nothing but the XBox? What all do you need to get hooked up?

 

[JB2K]

What if you have nothing but the XBox? What all do you need to get hooked up?

• A way to connect your machine to your internet router (either by an optional wireless adapter or a simple ethernet cable).
  
• XBOX Live service

 

[Planogirl]

• A way to connect your machine to your internet router

That's the one that puzzles me. We have DSL through a dead phone line so I need to do my research.

 

[LilyWDW]

That's the one that puzzles me. We have DSL through a dead phone line so I need to do my research.

You should still have a router. A cable should go from your phone line connection, to the router, and then to the items hooked up to the internet. The router would also most likely have multiple spots for ethernet hookups. Just get another cord and connect.