xbox live family pack with 800 points

Yeah it's 800 points for the family to spend + 13 months for all four members. If you click it and scroll right, it's an offer together. Not bad.
 
I might actually take advantage of that, presuming it gives me the same credit it otherwise would for my existing single gold account. Will think about it. Also, only if I actually see this deal on my xbox - will check tonight.

Has there been any word on retail Family Gold cards? I'm less inclined to go this route if we aren't likely to see good, most likely at retail, deals on Family Gold.
 
I'm too lazy to read up on this but has the big question about if family pack pertains to just a single Xbox or multiple ones been answered yet? Would hit this for my girlfriend, sister, and brother if multiple.
 
Multiple ones should work fine since my Live Gold account works across any Xbox I play on as long as I'm signed in.
 
I read that all accounts that are to be included on the plan must be on the same console first (at activation), then they can be recovered on other systems after that
 
This is a great deal then. We have 4 360's in my house and all with live. It will save my family a ton of money and I'll do this tonight. I was worried about all accounts having to be on the same system all of the time. We can do it just for the initial and then they go back and recover on their system
 
Note that you don't get to share download content any more then usual. I wish they'd done this right and allowed all consoles on the same subnet to share download content, or something like that. Anyway, in other words, if you bought some download content with your account, you can use it anywhere as long as your signed in, but the other accounts in your family plan can only use it on the console it was originally bought on, even if other ones are in the same house. Lame. I wish they'd gotten it right.
 
Although it may seem like a silly question (and I may have missed it in the FAQ) can two accounts on the family plan be signed in at the same time? I would assume this to be the case as it would allow family members to play against one another, but it is never explicitly stated.
 
[quote name='chair_home']I read that all accounts that are to be included on the plan must be on the same console first (at activation), then they can be recovered on other systems after that[/QUOTE]

Don't need to recover. Just use a USB drive or Memory card for the profile. Activated everyone in my family like this.
 
[quote name='JoeZiggadigga']Although it may seem like a silly question (and I may have missed it in the FAQ) can two accounts on the family plan be signed in at the same time? I would assume this to be the case as it would allow family members to play against one another, but it is never explicitly stated.[/QUOTE]

Of course. Once activated it pretty much works like all 4 people have regular gold.
 
from xbox.com

Q: I am currently an Xbox LIVE Gold member. If I have time remaining on my current subscription, do I receive a discount on an Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack?
A: We will give existing Xbox LIVE Gold members a prorated discount on the purchase of a Family Pack. For each month remaining on your current Xbox LIVE Gold subscription, we will reduce the purchase price of a Family Pack by $5. For example, if you have six months of your Gold subscription remaining, you qualify for a $30 discount and will only be charged $69.99 at the time of purchase. If you have 20 months or more of your current Xbox LIVE Gold subscription remaining, you can upgrade to an Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack for free. You will not receive a refund for any remaining subscription time in excess of 20 months.

Q: Can I add existing Xbox LIVE Gold members to my Family Pack? For example, my kids are already Xbox LIVE Gold members.
A: Yes. When an existing Xbox LIVE Gold member is added to a Family Pack, the remaining time on their Gold membership benefits the whole family! For every two months remaining on their current Gold membership, the entire family receives an extra month of Xbox LIVE Gold. For example, if your child has six months remaining on their existing Xbox LIVE Gold membership, when you add him/her to your Family Pack, all four of the individual Xbox LIVE Gold accounts available in your Family Pack will be extended by an additional three months. If you have two children who have four and six months of Gold remaining, respectively, on their existing Xbox LIVE Gold subscriptions, all four of the individual Xbox LIVE Gold accounts available in your Family Pack will be extended by an additional five months.

If your family members have more than 72 months of Xbox LIVE Gold membership remaining combined when they are added to the Xbox LIVE Gold family pack, any remaining time on their subscriptions in excess of the 72 months will be cancelled and you will not receive a refund for any time beyond 72 months.
 
[quote name='chair_home']I read that all accounts that are to be included on the plan must be on the same console first (at activation), then they can be recovered on other systems after that[/QUOTE]


Q: I have multiple consoles in my family. Does my Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack have to reside only one of those consoles?
A: When an individual is added to an Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack, that person’s Xbox LIVE account must be on the same console as the primary account holder. However, once they are a part of your Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack, that person could recover their account on a different console and still remain a part of the Family Pack, as long as they reside in the same country as the primary account holder.
 
[quote name='crunchewy']Note that you don't get to share download content any more then usual. I wish they'd done this right and allowed all consoles on the same subnet to share download content, or something like that. Anyway, in other words, if you bought some download content with your account, you can use it anywhere as long as your signed in, but the other accounts in your family plan can only use it on the console it was originally bought on, even if other ones are in the same house. Lame. I wish they'd gotten it right.[/QUOTE]

Yes, that is a major issue in my household. Just one clarification/correction on the console "originally bought on". Unlike the old days, where it really was locked down to that console, if I upgrade the Xbox in my family room and then transfer all the content like Live started allowing a year or two ago, that new console actually becomes the "originally bought" one doesn't it? I want to make the new 250GB one the "main" one that will have 95% of my families' downloaded content on it no matter who is signed in. I want to move the old one to a kids room or playroom.
 
[quote name='turls']Yes, that is a major issue in my household. Just one clarification/correction on the console "originally bought on". Unlike the old days, where it really was locked down to that console, if I upgrade the Xbox in my family room and then transfer all the content like Live started allowing a year or two ago, that new console actually becomes the "originally bought" one doesn't it? I want to make the new 250GB one the "main" one that will have 95% of my families' downloaded content on it no matter who is signed in. I want to move the old one to a kids room or playroom.[/QUOTE]

Yes you can do that with the online DRM tool that you can use once a year.
 
[quote name='crunchewy']Has there been any word on retail Family Gold cards? I'm less inclined to go this route if we aren't likely to see good, most likely at retail, deals on Family Gold.[/QUOTE]

I haven't heard anything about it but if you go to manage your account on xbox.com there's an option for a code under the family plan upgrade so... maybe? As far as I know the only way to upgrade right now is through your console or credit card online so a code option would seem to imply that they plan to have it retail.
 
Yep, and the regular 12 month subscription cards don't work once you "upgrade" to the Family Plan
 
Okay, I'm expecting a "No", but cuould you purchase this, and use all four codes on the same account? Like, if I upgraded to this, but there's only me on my xbox, could I get 4 years of LIVE for $99.99?
 
I can't say with absolute certainty since I haven't actually purchased the thing, but I'm thinking it's a no. Like 99% certainty. Also, I think you can only bank 36 months of live so the four years wouldn't really work. :)
 
[quote name='jordanv99']I can't say with absolute certainty since I haven't actually purchased the thing, but I'm thinking it's a no. Like 99% certainty. Also, I think you can only bank 36 months of live so the four years wouldn't really work. :)[/QUOTE]

Yeah, but even if you get 3 years, $33 per year is a nice deal! Plus the 800 points.
 
Okay. This may be a dumb question but... if I have 12 months of gold already and get this family pack, I save 60 bucks, but do I still have my original 12 months also? Like I would have 2 years of gold... or do I just get the discount and lose my time?
 
[quote name='rockstarnati']Okay. This may be a dumb question but... if I have 12 months of gold already and get this family pack, I save 60 bucks, but do I still have my original 12 months also? Like I would have 2 years of gold... or do I just get the discount and lose my time?[/QUOTE]

You get the discount and lose your time.

This part of the quote on the last page pretty much confirms that:

If you have 20 months or more of your current Xbox LIVE Gold subscription remaining, you can upgrade to an Xbox LIVE Gold Family Pack for free. You will not receive a refund for any remaining subscription time in excess of 20 months.
Click to expand...

So you are effectively "cashing in" your current sub to pay for the family plan. 20 months = $100 so you get it for "free" at that point, but lose any months you have beyond that and you have a new 1 year family plan.

I'm intrigued by the part where the kids accounts add an extra month for every 2 they currently have, though. I just added a year to my son's account, and I have more than 20 months myself. So I could get the family plan for free + another 6 or 7 months because of his. I just wish they did the same for the main account beyond the 20 months needed to pay for the $100 initial purchase.

My younger son doesn't seem like he'll be playing online any time soon though. If he were, I would probably upgrade for sure. As it is, with just the 2 of us, it is still tempting but probably not worth it.

It would be a great deal if you had 4 active players though!
 
FYI, once in the family plan you can not extend your subscription with 12 month cards (for 6 months - 1 for 2). This according to @xboxsupport. So once in the Fanily plan you are captive and at the mercy of Microsoft for deals.
 
Ughh... This deal seems good at first glance, but I cant help but feel like its another sham. Once you have the family plan you are locked in, so if 12 Mo. gold cards go on sale you cant even add them to your subsciription?! And I still HATE the fact that I cannot share MY downloads across consoles in my house.

They need to make some sort of Xbox server that you download all content to and it becomes available to any console hooked up to the server. Couldnt they do that? Sell an Xbox branded router/server that allows you to DL content to that instead of a specific HDD. I would totally shell out $100+ for this. Until this sort of thing happens, Id rather just stick to the traditional gold cards.
 
[quote name='brewin']Ughh... Once you have the family plan you are locked in, so if 12 Mo. gold cards go on sale you cant even add them to your subsciription?[/QUOTE]


i have to imagine there has to be away around this-

they can't stop us from canceling this family plan in the near future-when our time is almost up-and then as individual accounts we could go back to 12 month cards and since they don't expire we could buy 1 or 2 along the way before our family plan year is up-

or just stock up on $30 best buy 12 month live right now-if you really don't need the plan
 
You guys seem to fail to realize that we are in a small minority of deal hunters and cheap asses. The vast majority of live subscribers are happily paying MSRP for live and/or on auto-renewal.

MS could give a shit if we can find good deals on live cards to ad to our family pan. We are a drop in the ocean.
 
What you can do is buy the cheap 12 month cards when available, add them to a spare silver account, or make a new one. Then add that account into the "family pack". It will then take that 12 months and cancel it and add 6 months to the family plan. You can't do this very often, I think the terms are meant to be vague, but Microsoft states somewhere that you can't add and remove accounts to the family pack willy nilly. Also, you would need a free family pack slot of course to do so.

I converted to the family pack last week. It seemed too good of a deal to pass up, converting time that I had payed less than $30 per year to credit for double that, and then adding 7 months of family extension from my wife's time.

What I had forgotten was my unused 12 +1 gold card I had still on hand. So I added it to my ancient always silver Xbox gamertag from the original Xbox days to make it gold and then folded it into the family plan. Added another 7 months extension on. Not sure why it rounded up, I dunno. I wasn't going to ask.

For now, we just use that third account to watch netflix in the bedroom while the other two gold accounts are logged in together on the other console.

It would be AWESOME if having a family pack allowed sharing of downloads to "family registered consoles" or consoles with the same external IP, or something.
 
You can have a total of 5 unique accounts added to the family pack per year. And you have to wait 7 days after removing one before you can add it back.
 
Only thing I can think of as a possible workaround would be this:

Have 20 months on your account. Sign up for family plan, cashing in your time for a free year. Bring in your other 3 accounts. Then, make sure auto-renewal of any kind is OFF. Let the account lapse and revert you all to silver. Try to sign up for individual gold again with 2 12 month cards, which you can gobble up at 29.99 at BB right now(see other thread). Convert account to family again, bring in other accounts, rinse, repeat for years to come. It'll give you 4 accounts for $60 a year at that current BB price(if you go stock up with a handful of cards) IF it's possible. That would be $15 a head if you have 4 people. I don't know how it'll work when your account lapses since it's never happened before, obviously. Just a theory.
 
Interesting idea about using a spare silver account to add 12 month cards, but the could at some point stop allowing you to convert/fold-in. Perhaps they see this is a just a temporary option since the Family Plan didn't exist before and thus people would likely be in this situation through no fault of their own. In the future they could just say tough luck - you have to start from 0 when switching to a family plan. Who knows.
 
[quote name='brewin']Ughh... This deal seems good at first glance, but I cant help but feel like its another sham. Once you have the family plan you are locked in, so if 12 Mo. gold cards go on sale you cant even add them to your subsciription?! And I still HATE the fact that I cannot share MY downloads across consoles in my house.[/QUOTE]

More so than that, I'd like to be able to simply log in to any system like I can with the PS3. I mean, I just visited my Dad in another state and I can log in, no problem, to my PSN account on his system there - not to mention play any of my PSN games with my kids while any of us are logged in from anywhere (as long as we gameshare the game to that PS3 of course).

I know I can put the profiles on a USB drive, but that is a pain especially if one kid wants to be on one system and the other (or me) on another. This is why I have yet to buy a second 360, though I am really temped to get a 250 GB Kinect bundle.
 
[quote name='pieczonka']my xbox live has the xbox live family pack with 800 free points. not a bad deal if you are looking for the family pack[/QUOTE]

I'm sorry, but after reading everything in here, I still don't know the price for this.
Is the title trying to say you can purchase a Family Pack subscription with 800 MS points? That would be ridiculous.
 
[quote name='thrustbucket']You do know you can do an account recover, right? It takes a few minutes but it works.[/QUOTE]

Yes, but it's pretty stupid to have to do that. We should just be able to log in from anywhere. Oh well. I wish they'd made a change like that with the dashboard update instead of just changing the look and adding ESPN. Oh well.


[quote name='Seasick Pirate']I'm sorry, but after reading everything in here, I still don't know the price for this.
Is the title trying to say you can purchase a Family Pack subscription with 800 MS points? That would be ridiculous.[/QUOTE]

Family Gold costs $100, but discounted $5 per month of remaining time on your existing account, up to 20 months (i.e. making it free). Anything beyond that is lost, which sucks. When you add existing accounts to the family plan you get credited 1 month for every 2 months on those accounts. After that the only way to extend your sub is by paying the $100, or any discounted rate they might offer in the future - retail cards can NOT be used. Some have suggested creating new silver accounts, adding time to them, then swapping them into the family plan in order to add time. That works now. Not sure if it will always work. I hope they change all this and allow adding time via sub cards. They ought to have the sub cards say 1 year for single user/6 months for Family, and apply that way.
 
[quote name='crunchewy']They ought to have the sub cards say 1 year for single user/6 months for Family, and apply that way.[/QUOTE]This. This is how it should work.

I'm looking at switching to a Fam sub at the beginning of December, when I'm down to 20mo. Add in my son, daughter, and wife...and I should be good through March 2013. Then, unless things change, I'll have to deal with a $100 renewal at that time. The CAG in me hopes there's some way to circumnavigate that $100 renewal fee when the time comes.

I'll have to check for that 800MSP offer, see if it's on my dash.
 
I'm already in the family plan, but the only offer I've seen on the dash is just a basic icon about the family plan and when selected goes to a confirm purchase screen that offers the 12 months plus 2 bonus months for the plan for $99.99. It also shows your adjusted next renewal time for the family plan if you bought the extension.

My wife said no, though. :) But I guess 2 months of family pack time isn't that much different from 800 points really.
 
Finally decided to convert to Family plan after picking up 2x Joust cards for $30 each, to put in my kids accounts to get another year. Alas, I don't see any deals at all on this. Where do you see the deals? All I could find was in account management, the option to convert to Family for full price. :(
 
FYI, there are problems with Family Gold right now! I converted my account, having first added one month to each of my kids' accounts, and then when I went to look at my "family", my kids accounts were listed, but they were NOT in the Family Gold "family". Instead they had their own separate Gold accounts. So I tried deleting them from the non "Family Gold family" with the intent of putting them back in, but then I discovered that on the web you can't add an existing member to your family. In retrospect I understand this since you have to have the accounts on the same console, so then I checked the console and... there was no Family Center! That means I can't add them. I called Xbox Support and they tell me there is an emergency problem with the Family Gold center and they are working on that. After that is resolved I should have the Family Center on my xbox console. They had no ETA for when this would be fixed. Argh!
 
Yesterday I converted to Family Gold and now today I finally see the offer for 13 months and 800 points. Argh! I emailed Xbox Support to see if I could be credit the month and points. We'll see. Anyway, for me this deal finally showed up today, so maybe others will see it now?
 
The 800 points & 13 months deal is showing up for both me and my brother, so you might be right that it's becoming common now.
 
so if im reading this right i should wait till im at exactly 20 months then do the family pack?

was planning to do this with my cousins but i dont want to waste my extra months siince im set till feb 2013
 
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