Better Solution for 48 hr Xbox Live Gold?

[Acert93]

Ok, this is probably an odd thread so I will offer some background: My parents have an Xbox they loan to us at times. Sometimes, like today, they are visiting and we wanted to play some Forza 4 today, but I am out of 48 cards. Likewise we sometimes (maybe 3-4 times a year) have an Xbox party at our house and my parents Xbox and some of my friends are Silver accounts.

So I am looking at a solution other than getting a family plan (big cut into the gaming budget). I am not above filling out a legit survey (but not one of those that want permission to spam your mail box or telemarket you--no thanks).

I am hoping there is a real solution other than, "tick your friends off by begging for cards and/or stop being a cheap skate about buy 1 less game a year and get a family plan."



Ps- I have migrated from irritated with this feature of Xbox Live to quite annoyed. I have seen a number of games that now make it near impossible to play online split screen w/o 2 gold accounts. I thought Halo 3 kind of set the standard: Yes, you can do 4 way split screen with 1 Gold account online. That should be part of the TSRs. Further, it has become an alarming trend the number of games that have dropped system link. The worst example is Forza 3/4 which still fully support ethernet (see: 3 way console setup) but they *dropped* system link for actual gaming.

 

[Onkl Bjorni]

Ok, this is probably an odd thread so I will offer some background: My parents have an Xbox they loan to us at times. Sometimes, like today, they are visiting and we wanted to play some Forza 4 today, but I am out of 48 cards. Likewise we sometimes (maybe 3-4 times a year) have an Xbox party at our house and my parents Xbox and some of my friends are Silver accounts.

So I am looking at a solution other than getting a family plan (big cut into the gaming budget). I am not above filling out a legit survey (but not one of those that want permission to spam your mail box or telemarket you--no thanks).

I am hoping there is a real solution other than, "tick your friends off by begging for cards and/or stop being a cheap skate about buy 1 less game a year and get a family plan."



Ps- I have migrated from irritated with this feature of Xbox Live to quite annoyed. I have seen a number of games that now make it near impossible to play online split screen w/o 2 gold accounts. I thought Halo 3 kind of set the standard: Yes, you can do 4 way split screen with 1 Gold account online. That should be part of the TSRs. Further, it has become an alarming trend the number of games that have dropped system link. The worst example is Forza 3/4 which still fully support ethernet (see: 3 way console setup) but they *dropped* system link for actual gaming.

I don't have a long term solution for you, but I have some 48h cards lying around. So if you want I can hook you up with a free code for 48h Live Gold

(not home right now, so might be a few hours before i can supply you with the code)

 

[NavNucST3]

I'm not sure what to say other than the family plan Live is $60/year now so the family plan is definitely a better buy. Can you get the parents to chip in $25 to lower the cost of it? My biggest problem with the Gold cards is that they are pseudo-Gold since you don't actually get all the Gold features. I have other ideas but I'm not sure how they'll come off in the written word.

 

[NRP]

I'll donate a 12-mo Live subscription.

 

[Acert93]

That is awful generous, but I have blessed by the generosity of people here more than once! Mine is more of a practical issue these days: We have a generous entertainment budget and I stick to it. That means I plan the games I get through the year blah blah blah. Those with wives, children, and orthodontic bills surely know the routine. LOL.

In the past most of my games came with 48hr cards. This hasn't been true for a while now. I bumbed a couple cards off here for impromptu Xbox-Parties but I was hoping that maybe one of those, "Take a Survey, get a Card" things was legit. My wife's friend is part of a survey deal and my wife actually does a corporate direct one with a food company (she runs a successful cooking blog). I have seen adverts for Xbox-advert ones, but they all look like *scams* to me where their real intention to data mining of personal information (not legit survey data).

Anyways, thanks for all the feedback and offers of generosity. I got a PM for a legit sale. So now I gotta decide:

@ Nav, yeah, $60 for 3 more live accounts isn't a horrible deal. I wonder how the online pass works with most games... with XBLA it seems most games are tied to both the console and a GT (in theory, if you had 2 Xboxs, you could let the wife play Bejeweled offline on the Xbox that DL'd the content and then sign in with your GT and play another game online... if I understand it correctly, never tried this) but I think the online passes are assigned a GT and not to a console whatsoever?

I guess I have the good problem of having friends who want to hang out for some grilled food and getting some gaming action on

 

[Johnny_Physics]

That is awful generous, but I have blessed by the generosity of people here more than once! Mine is more of a practical issue these days:

Honestly, your disposition towards this warms my heart.


But you bring up an interesting quandary.