Daft newbie xbox questions.

[bmwmike]

Hello

Got the offspring an xbox for Christmas and I've noticed in my twitter an offer of Xbox ultimate for £1.

Not sure of this link will work for everyone but here goes: https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/xbox-game-pass#join

My question is this. Presumably ultimate is the way to go, and I see it includes Spotify premium for six months. I am paying £17 for amazon unlimited at the moment so that may be a win in itself. Will check terms etc.

However the ultimate pack includes xbox live gold. I can't seem to find any info saying what the difference is between ultimate and gold once the full quarterly price kicks in?

And further down under "console" at £7.99 a month (everything else seems to be quarterly - obfuscation) a seemingly un-named pack which brings "Unlimited access to over 100 high-quality console games". So isn't that what ultimate or even gold does?

Totally confused!

Thanks
Mike

[randlemarcus]

Gold is the ability to play online etc
Game pass is the thing that gives you the free (while on Game Pass) games, and ultimate is just that branded.

If you are getting the calculator out, worth doing a search for non-Microsoft voucher sources, i.e. CDKeys etc, as you may save more with those than Spotify is valued at.

Lastly, set the console up before Xmas, as tearing off paper, then waiting hours for an update may not appeal.

[Benjarke]

So Xbox offers 2 subscriptions;

Xbox Live Gold (£6.99/Month) - This enables you to play online against others, you also get a couple of games free every month on it (nothing exciting normally)

Xbox Game Pass (£7.99/Month) - This is their game pass subscription which gives you access to 100+ games which you can download and play.

However in order to play the Game Pass games online with others you would also need Gold subscription and this is what the Ultimate pass is, both of these combined.

I know there are offers on the ultimate pass at the moment but after they finish it is £10.99/Month so saving £4/month if you were to get them separately.

[bmwmike]

Thank you all for the replies. That clears it up.

Before I open the box, would the playstation have been a better option for 10 and 8yr old girls?

Also is lego available on game pass or do I need to buy that? I asked a question on here a while ago and someone said xbox lego game is great for kids.

Thanks!!

[LuS1fer]

I pay £49 a year for X Box Gold.

My sons are both on X Box and have been since they were 7 or 8. One is 13 and into car games, the other is 10 and into Fortnite, Minecraft and anything else he can get at but he doesn't like Lego.

As above, set up on advance as the updates take ages and one Christmas, the X-Box site went down so lots of kids couldn't use them as they won't operate until set up and updated.

[bmwmike]

Thanks everyone. Xbox comes with 1m game pass but I bought the 3 months for a £1. Will see how it all works out after that.

I've not setup the xbox yet but will do as advised before Christmas. I presume my new xbox ultimate pass can be setup on that box at that point somehow.

[randlemarcus]

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all...

When setting up the children account, don't forget the age needs to be above 13

Currently, Lego Ninjago is on GamePass

[bmwmike]

randlemarcus said:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/xbox/forum/all...

When setting up the children account, don't forget the age needs to be above 13

Currently, Lego Ninjago is on GamePass

Thank you.

Age thing, surprised by that as i thought xbox was for kids but eldest (10) is very mature. Youngest, not so sure..! I think I'll just do the game pass and not the live thing tbh after the 3 months runs out.

[The_Jackal]

If anything, the Live thing is the most basic of abilities, especially if they ever want to play against friends.
Also bear in mind you will only play a few of those million games. It may seem cheap at first, but a year of game pass is more than paying to own the couple of games they play regularly. And each year after is just more money to just keep the game on your machine, even if you dont download more games.

[LuS1fer]

Live is fairly essential. My 10 year old plays online, with school friends, constantly and he has his best friend talking alongside on his mobile phone wi-fi on speaker. Gone are the days of playing outside, kids now interact in a virtual world.

You can chat through headphones but they are pricy and keep breaking so the phone works just fine.

[Bullett]

bmwmike said:

Thank you.

Age thing, surprised by that as i thought xbox was for kids but eldest (10) is very mature. Youngest, not so sure..! I think I'll just do the game pass and not the live thing tbh after the 3 months runs out.

Don't make the mistake of thinking gaming is for kids, some of it is very mature content, sex and violence, swearing etc. and that's the games themselves.
Check the age recommendations and do your research.
For online play make sure they can only connect/talk to friends/known people.
This applies to any platform.

Have the asked for a console? Fortnite is the game my 10yo boy is playing which is free for the basic game (plus Fifa, Rocket League and Star Wars Battlefront 2), the 8yo girl has little interest but she'll have a go occasionally on lego or the VR stuff (on PC).
Download some games before handing it over.
If on disc install them and make sure the patches are loaded before xmas.
All day spent registering and d/l stuff will not make for happy kids especially with everyone else doing the same it will be very slow.

[bmwmike]

Thanks for all the tips.

They haven't specifically asked for a console but they've mentioned friends have xbox. No idea what games their friends play. Thats why I thought about the live thing then decide what they want. Actualy that's a lie. I haven't thought this through at all beyond grabbing one on the black Friday sale.

[LuS1fer]

bmwmike said:

Thanks for all the tips.

They haven't specifically asked for a console but they've mentioned friends have xbox. No idea what games their friends play. Thats why I thought about the live thing then decide what they want. Actualy that's a lie. I haven't thought this through at all beyond grabbing one on the black Friday sale.

Don't worry. Within a day, my boys were experts and now I'm no longer in the loop, bar the password. I also had to put a passcode on the 10 year old after he bought £350 worth of games. I got it back but Microsoft now have a disclaimer so a code is advisable.

[bmwmike]

Feeling really thick here.

So i plugged in the xbox and did all the updates. I then logged into my microsoft account on the xbox only to be presented with the gamer tag/name of my eldest kid. Then i remembered i'd used that account for her minecraft, and i've also purchased a game pass on this account.

Some questions for those more versed in this stuff than I:

1. Trying to add family members under my account and it seems microsoft expects my kids to have email addresses - are they for real? Can i not add children to my account without them having an email address? I tried using an alias [e-mail] but microsoft doesn't accept that.

2. Anyone know if i can transfer the minecraft worlds on my account to a newly created child account so they dont lose everything? Another approach i guess i could have created myself a new account and then swap the email addresses but that requires daughter participation and they dont know about the xbox yet (unless her minecraft account now tells her its also logged into xbox - lol).

3. Once i've eventually setup a parent account with my kids all nice happy members of the microsoft family, presumably switching between accounts on the xbox itself doesn't require passwords Every. Single. Time. to be entered? Its awkard as fook using the controller and encourages weak passwords. So for example if eldest wants to play "her" minecraft account and then the youngest wants a go after on her own account, how do they switch? Is it simple? If it requires passwords i'm seriously tempted to buy a second xbox or get rid of it altogether. Its already doing my head in.

Thanks

[LuS1fer]

Don't know the answer but email addresses are easy enough to get, for nothing, through gmail.

I do know that the second X-Box idea is the better one. If mine had to share, there would be war.

[bmwmike]

ya created a outlook account on microsoft in the end. Just hate giving away data but i guess thats the point of all this junk these days - capture our info and monetise it.

Oh for a day without technology

[Mr_Yogi]

Someone posted above about the mature content of many of the current "must play" games, this is a real issue with children who are 8-12. A surprising number of the popular big budget games on the XBox, PS4 and PC have mature ratings. Depending on how mature your children are you might find the reviews on this website (www.commonsensemedia.org) helpful for games.

[Mammasaid]

bmwmike said:

3. Once i've eventually setup a parent account with my kids all nice happy members of the microsoft family, presumably switching between accounts on the xbox itself doesn't require passwords Every. Single. Time. to be entered? Its awkard as fook using the controller and encourages weak passwords. So for example if eldest wants to play "her" minecraft account and then the youngest wants a go after on her own account, how do they switch? Is it simple? If it requires passwords i'm seriously tempted to buy a second xbox or get rid of it altogether. Its already doing my head in.

Thanks

Each account will have a passcode set up to use with the controller, something like up, down, left, left, up, up. to switch between accounts takes seconds.

[Mammasaid]

Mammasaid said:

Each account will have a passcode set up to use with the controller, something like up, down, left, left, up, up. to switch between accounts takes seconds.

In terms of games for girls 8+, apart from Minecraft which will occupy them for hours, there's 4 Lego games on Game Pass, including Lego Star Wars. Human Fall Flat is a great co-operative game for kids. Of course you won't want to switch on the console after the kids have gone to bed to play Forza Horizon 4 (also available on Game Pass)

[bmwmike]

Thanks everyone for all the really helpful info. Much appreciated!!!