Xbox Live

Xbox Live is split into 2 sevices, the Silver and Gold subscripions. Xbox Live Silver comes free of charge and is available to every 360 owner. A Live Silver account does not generally support multiplayer gaming; however, some games that feature their own subscription service (eg. Final Fantasy XI) can be played with a Silver account. Xbox Live also supports voice and video communication, the latter a feature possible with the Xbox Live Vision; an add-on USB web camera designed specifically for the Xbox 360. The Gamercard of a player with a Silver account has a silver trim, rather than gold.

Xbox Live Gold has the same features as Silver and includes integrated online game playing capabilities outside of third-party subscriptions. Original Xbox owners can transfer their Live account to the 360; they are able to tranfer their profile information, friends list, and games history when they make the transition to Xbox Live Gold. An Xbox Live Gold account has an annual cost of US$9.99, C$59.99, NZD90.00, GB£39.99, or €59.99. As of May 14th 2008, Xbox Live has over 12 million subscribers.

The Xbox Live Marketplace is a virtual market designed for the console that allows Xbox Live users to download purchased or promotional content. The service offers HD movie rentals, movie and game trailers, game demos, Xbox Live Arcade games, Xbox Original games, gamertag images, and Xbox 360 Dashboard themes as well as add-on game content (items, costumes, levels etc). These features are available to both silver and gold members on Xbox Live. A hard drive or memory unit is required to store products purchased from Xbox Live Marketplace. In order to download priced content, users are required to purchase Microsoft Points for use as currency. A points card can be bought from stores or through Xbox Live with a credit card, 2100 points costs £17.50 which is roughly £1 equals 120 points. But some products (such as trailers) are free to download. Users are able to view items available to download on the service through a PC via the Xbox Live Pipeline website. An estimated seventy percent of Xbox Live users have downloaded items from the Marketplace.

Each Xbox Live member chooses a nickname to identify them in online matches, this is the gamertag. Your gamertag goes on your gamercard which also tracks your progress through games through an achievment points system. Each game gives you 1000 points which you earn by completing levels, leveling up your character, playing online matches etc. You also acheive reputation from playing online, if someone enjoyed playing against you they can give you 5 stars, if they found what you were saying offensive they can give you negative reputation.