Be Excellent To Each Other

Hello, people of this forum.

I got an Xbox 360 the other day. Yay for me. Seem to have managed to muddle through connecting it to my monitor with only a few disasters (Figure 1) and after a bit of faffing I can flip between PC and 360 by changing the input source (Figure 2, Figure 3).

Other than, y'know, playing games, what should I do next? What would your priorities be, and what do you wish you'd done when first got a hold of one?

Particularly, is Xbox Live Gold worth it? How do you go about finding make-believe console chums to get soundly beaten by?

Things I have already done by poking about and seeing what happened:

1). Got to grips with the UI before it disappeared and came back looking all different and shit (and better, to be fair).

2). Diddled myself out of the free one month gold trial by signing up (partially) as a username that already existed before getting things sorted out properly. (The already existing account was actually, er, me, because GFWL IDs are apparently the same as XBL IDs. Who knew? Had to importify that account to the 360. Free trial offer now not there).

3). Made an ickle mini-me. He looks like a right spod.

4). Worked out how to download demos and the like.

5). Encountered miserable failure when trying to link the 360 with Windows Media Center before realising that said Media Center PC was half a foot away and sharing the same monitor and for fuck sake why was I even trying?

6). Realised the monitor does not have RCA-style audio-in so have bought an hdmi cable and have some lovely speakers on order because it only has a surround pass-through output thingy. Bah. Still no idea how to get sound from the PC and the 360 without having (i) two sets of speakers or (ii) dicking about with cables and swapping them between one and the other every time.

So, suggestions and advice please. Bear in mind that barring a DS I have never owned a console (well, also have an N64 purchased, er, last year) so please treat me like the moron I am.

Ta.

I'm on my phone so can't be arsed typing advice. Someone else will.

But: hello!

I'd say Gold Membership is worth it. Try to get one via some website or other than will sell it you for less money than Microsoft. One of the other peeps on here should be able to help with that.

Most of the good fun I have had with the Box of Fun has been via online gaming with the crowd from the forum.

What games to get will depend largely on what kind of thing you like. Crackdown should be pretty cheap, so if you can pick that up for 10-15 quid I'd recommend it.

Hello back!

Curiosity: Right, fuck it, I'm getting Gold. Have done some digging and that Jasper guy seems reliable and cheap. 13 months of total humiliation shall soon be mine.

Yeah, the games choosing thing I'm pretty much on top of thanks to some pro-level lurking here and... elsewhere. It was more, oh I dunno, other stuff. Like, I seem to recall reading somewhere that if you share your PC music library you can listen to that while playing stuff. (This might have been in a dream, mind). Is that true? - can't see any way to do it at the moment.

Oh, and mine is standing upright at the moment. Should probably delve into the RRoD thread (think that's where it was) to see if concensus was reached. Ooh, which reminds me I must try to find out whether it's got the new chipset which will supposedly not be so inclined to burst into flames or whatever.

Then maybe actually play a game.

FFS. Sorry.

Re: 360 acquired: what to do first?

Cup your hands together in the praying position and repeat after me.

Please god don't let my ring turn this color.

+1 PC HP

Hello ________!

You will find cyber friends here, look through the various threads to see how many BeeXers are into what games and how hard they're bumming them.

Yeah get gold, but shop around for it. (look in the bargains thread)

And lay your 360 horizontally.

Yes, you can stream music from your PC/NAS drive while you're playing, assuming the FunSquare and the BeigeBox can see each other. Go to the Music Library and select the PC as the source, or you can do the same via the mini-media-player thingamy in the centre-button pop-up menu. You don't need to set it up as a Windows Media Centre or anything. Thank fuck.

Also: hello! I have problems enough pronouncing the end of Grim...'s name, so I look forward to trying yours.

So I should probably put my xbox horizontal then... probably explains why I got my red light!

If you have an ipod or something you can plug that into the usb at the front of the 360 and select the music from there aswell

I always thought you got at least a months gold for free.

When you connect and create your account it should ask you if you want gold (and pay stuff) or silver , if you select silver it'll say are you sure - go on - give us some cash , if you then say no it then says something like "why dont you try it for free then" and you get one months gold for free (then you need to pay).

In the past i was always against paying for an online service but Xbox live is the one thing i have paid for.

Also, there's an announcement thread at the top of the forum containing a link created by his Grim...ness that should allow you to add everyone on here with a 360 live account to your friends list in one fell swoop. Sometimes it even works.

Oooh I might try that -- I'm not golden at the moment, though.

The most important thing you need to do is get a 360 Voice blog and then join our group.

Obv.

can I call you 'underscore'?

'Eight Underscores', surely?

Welcome, Line!

Yes, get Live Gold and play shooting and driving games against mates. It is top fun.

I also sometimes use my 360 for watching iPlayer and other downloaded stuff on my TV, and the photo slideshow, but it sounds like you don't need to do that..

However, I wouldn't go nuts and try to use it for everything because.. They are probably more likely to break if used heavily.. You might find it annoying loud.. and the power consumption is just ridiculous! 140-150 Watts, I measured.

Or , perhaps.

I meant to get back to you on this Kalmar. I looked again at my watt (what?) metre. My entire set up only takes about 40 watts (Playing FIFA 09, un installed). Obviously, the Watt metre could be wrong, but ...

Well, apart from playing games on it, you can watch a film on it. And play games on it. I recommend crackdown, Saints Row, Dead Rising (great but infuriating), Rainbow Six Vegas (2 if you find it cheap), Hitman Blood Money, and great caution when buying games.

Thanks for all the top tips.

The music streaming thing sounds promising. Probably easiest just to plug an ipod into the box, at least until I get my hands on one of these.

Was going to demur on the blogging thing due to laziness and semi-reclusivity, but on closer inspection... wow, it's like a robot writes stuff for you. That's wild and slightly scary.

Play and charge kit, Super ultimate Bunsout Paradise and (gnnngh) Mass Effect now bought.

Sorry this thread is a bit me-centric. I shall try to contribute nuggets of distilled awesome on other threads, but someone always seems to have posted the correct opinion (ie. same as mine) before I get to the end of the thread.

And yeah, it's a shit name. Same as on WoS (not that I ever posted). Gamertag is Kairopan in case you see me weaving about in Burnout (1.49 x 10⁴ bonus geek points if you recognise the reference).

Is Burny P worth purchasing? Ive been tempted by it for a while

In the halcyon days when half a dozen bezzies could be found playing it every night, absolutely. Now? Well, the single player's a decent game if not superb, and I'm sure you can rustle up a few people to play the multiplayer.

I spose if I can pick it up for like a tenner or so may be an idea, would be good to play with bezzies more often.
Only played CoD4 with some of you so far, and that was pretty fun

Even when we were shooting each other instead of the enemy?

Thats half the fun right there!

I can only think it must be wrong! I just tried a second one here, same type - 10 quid from Lidl - and it agrees with the first one at about 250W for CRT telly and 360.
Supposedly the newer 360s are cooler running and so on, but your TV will be taking more than 40W in the first place.. so.. no, it must be that. Try resetting the meter thing because they do occasionally go nuts - there's a pinhole on the front if it's the same type as mine.

Xbox 360 PSUs are rated between 150ish and 200+ish watts, depending on the model. There's no way it's only drawing 40W, unless it can throttle right down when idling on the dashboard -- which I don't think it can.

...hang on for the next update (New Island) when Bezzie interest will be increased by the shed load.

Yeah, mine doesn't anyway. Even switched "off" it's taking nearly 40W!

With my xbox switched on, I am using 35 watts. With it in stand by mode, I am using 44. I think I may just leave it on.

I think the 100s digit is missing off your meter
Plug in a kettle and see what it says then.

Hey, this was from Lidl, it is a quality bit of kit! (I think you might be right!)

Also, if the PC and 360 decide not to talk to each other like mine did, there's always Winamp mobile which works nicely for me.

It works best in IE.


That wouldn't work. Shame on the rest of you for not pointing this out earlier.

Fine.

Mushroom, mushroom.

Spaaaace, spaaaace, ooooh it's a space.