X box live

[witsend]

Hi - DS1 going mad to have x box live, am quite happy for him to have it but am stuck on how to set it up. The PC and modem are downstairs and the x box upstairs, so I need to connect it wirelessly. Do I need to buy an extra gadget to do this? If so what is it and will it be expensive? (simple answers please am a bit clueless). Also if you have x box live already what do you think of it?

Luv Witsend.

[David Matthew Baker]

Hi - DS1 going mad to have x box live, am quite happy for him to have it but am stuck on how to set it up. The PC and modem are downstairs and the x box upstairs, so I need to connect it wirelessly. Do I need to buy an extra gadget to do this? If so what is it and will it be expensive? (simple answers please am a bit clueless). Also if you have x box live already what do you think of it?

Luv Witsend.

 

Yes we have xbox live. In fact both me and my brother have 2 accounts each so friends can also play when their here. Might get rid of them soon though as most of our friends have purchased their own accounts now in anycase and they can easily be brought across on a memory card. The service costs �40 a year. It is worth looking around the online retailers though as sometimes they have offers on that can significantly reduce this price. Some games also come with 1 month cards though the norm. seems to be more 2 day trials now. If your on a 360 you can also add your card details and purchase it directly online. From memory the original xbox needed card details as a way to show that someone was over 18. Technically your meant to be to use the service but there are quite a lot of younger users. That is mainly because the service is not policed very well. They're good at banning cheaters but not so good at getting rid of people who use bad language. On the 360 you can setup it so that the voice feature can't be used (that also goes for the video if you have the camera). Also you can choose to avoid certain players and it will try not to match you with them again in the future. You can also add prefered players and have a friends list to make it easier to find people you enjoy playing with. Most users on the service are sensible but their is a sizeable minority who can ruin games for others. That said MS is continously improving the service and if you go for games with people on your friends list it helps you avoid any idiots. It also means you can often get extra content for games (though often at a price) and hence extend the life of them. Also games like Halo have huge amount of players and endless fun can be had on the multiplayer for such big hits. More obscure smaller games can often be harder to find multiplayer games for. Again the service is always growing though so will improve over time.

 

As for connecting the xbox to you internet connection that depends on a few things. If you have a wireless router you will probably just need a wireless networking adapter. This will need to be one with an ethernet port if your talking for the original xbox or if for the 360 MS sells one that works fairly well. That said over long distances wireless doesn't work very well. Also it tends to be worse trying to go from downstairs upstairs on it. I'd be tempted just to buy a long CAT5 network cable and run that up. If you give us a bit more info. on your present router, whether it is a 360 or original xbox I'll see if I can help you a bit more and give you some links to info. to read up on. MS on xbox.com does have info. about connecting either a xbox or 360 upto an internet connection by the various possible methods.