I am too busy (pronounced "lazy") to blog very often, but I think my latest electronics adventure warrants a few comments that might benefit someone else.
I had been considering purchasing another XBox360 so the kids could play games upstairs when Michelle and I might like to watch something on the TV. So, I found a great deal on an XBox360 Elite at Costco in Reading (£159) and grabbed it. There was mention of Sky integration on the box (the biggest UK satellite service provider), and I thought to myself "Self, this is AWESOME!! When I get tired of iCarley and Drake and Josh ("Drank" and Josh as my son calls them), I can send the kids upstairs to watch their kruff elsewhere!! So, things I learned:
First, I already owned a US XBox360 with which I had been using my US XBox Live! account (which resulted in a rather frustrating level of restriction to content - you pretty much can't access any music videos, movies, tv shows, etc. from the UK. You can see previews with the Zune stuff, but when you try to purchase any of that sort of content, you get the digital face-palm : DISAPPOINTING).
I purchased a UK XBox360 Elite
So, I fire up the new UK XBox, and go to login to my XBox Live! account. "Your profile is activated on another XBox. Would you like to recover your gamer tag?". SWEET! So I just recover my tag and off I GO!! I recovered the tag, and low and behold - it was the EXACT SAME OPTIONS AS I HAD ON MY US XBOX. =/ Hmmm....
I went to the Sky site, and there were banners for "SKY ON YOUR XBOX360!" all over... I wondered if I needed to download something... No. Why was everything on my brand new XBox exactly the same?? I decided to try and create a UK XBox Live! profile. Guess what... once I logged in, it needed to update itself, and after a reboot, I had the Sky player, and the UK options!!
Lesson 1: The XBox360 itself appears to be identical regardless of where you buy it. The content and options are tied to both your Live ID, and your location (in terms of what you can access). Also, I connected my US power supply to my UK XBox360, and my UK Power to my US XBox360 (after checking the input/output on the bricks) - identical output. This was to reduce the amount of crap I needed to plug in upstairs.
Lesson 2: When I went back upstairs to login to my US XBox, guess what: had to recover my profile. =( You can only have your profile on ONE XBox at a time unless you use the little memory packs that you can plug into the controllers. DISAPPOINTING!! With 3 kids, I'm supposed to keep up with where the little memory thing is at any given moment?? Not likely...
My proposal to the XBox360 guys:
Tie the XBoxes to an ID. So, I go to the XBox site, and register the XBox to my ID (or via the XBox itself: "Did you just buy this XBox?") instead of the other way around like it is now. This still allows for people to take their profile on a memory stick, and there could be a "guest or owner option" for recovering the gamer tag on another XBox ("Do you own this XBox, or are you a guest?").
This would allow someone with 2+ XBoxes to just login to any of them, and get all their stuff! The current model is annoying.
I guess that means I wouldn't need to create additional XBox Live Gold accounts (REQUIRED TO ACCESS THE SKY PLAYER - I was SOOO not happy when I found this out - DISAPPOINTING!!), so MS would be "cheated" out of that revenue, but I would be FAR LESS pissed off if it just worked like a rational human being might expect (i.e. transparent access regardless of which XBox I'm on - it's ON the Internet - why the hell can't I just download it anywhere??) My gamer tag is associated with credentials already, but for more security: XBox Live RSA token like WoW??. Caveat: One more thing to lose...
This way, I could even go into work, and put my profile on the rec room XBox360, and take my achievements and profile with me!! And remotely pull my profile off a guest XBox if I want through the XBox Live website.
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XBoxes Associated with this ID:
Owner:
Dooley Home XBox360 [remove]
Dooley Kids XBox360 [remove]
Guest:
Work Rec Room XBox360 [remove]
...
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Now, my stuff is accessible, and I can play either in the living room, OR upstairs without having to recover my damned profile!! (Does that make sense to anyone??).
