Questions about migrating/upgrading to an Xbox 360 Elite

[impetus]

I've been thinking of swapping for an Elite for awhile. Any of you guys done this? Last week Best Buy had the $50 Gift Card bonus when buying a 360 + GTA IV so I bit to lock in the deal. I haven't opened anything yet, so I still have the option of returning it if I change my mind.

My Elite was manufactured in 2008, and from what I've read that means it's the 65nm Falcon version. So that's one question down.

I've found the cumbersome process and application for obtaining a data transfer kit and doing the HDD migration, and I understand that I will lose the ability to play my XBLA games that I paid money for, when not signed into my Live account.

Here are my questions, mostly related to their license bullshit:

Supposedly the XBLA license restriction is because the games are tied to the console. Yet I understand the old HDD will be erased. Will the games still be available on the old machine, post-data-transfer? I plan to sell the old 360, and I want to know if I can use $100 worth of XBLA games as a selling point or not.

Can you selectively choose what data gets migrated, or is it 1:1 only? My sister has an account (local, not Live) on the old machine; what if I wanted to split my account onto another box and let her keep the old console? Is this possible?

Assuming I've migrated my data and agree to the license restriction, do I have to be online connected to XBL to play my XBLA games? Or can I just log into my Live account locally on the machine? Do I lose the ability to play my XBLA games in times of XBL maintenance and internet outage?

Last one; this one's easy. Are HDD's tied to the console, or are they plug-and-play? Can I just yank a hard drive off one 360 and put it on another with everything intact?

I appreciate any answers from those of you who have been through this before.

[impetus]

One more:

If I use HDMI, can I still choose to output audio through optical?

[az_bont]

One more:

If I use HDMI, can I still choose to output audio through optical?

Yes, and apparently the Elite comes with a small dongle containing optical and analogue audio outputs for this purpose.



You can also use an ordinary Xbox 360 video cable plugged into the console at the same time as a HDMI cable (for those revisions that have that capability) and use the analogue audio outputs or optical output at the same time--however, the official high-definition cable has such a chunky connector that it won't physically fit in there at the same time, so for that you'd need a sufficiently-slim third-party one.

[Nyarlathotep]

XBLA purchases are tied to both gamertag and actual Xbox 360.

So you can't sell them on, unless you sell the whole gamertag, which I'm guessing you don't want to do.

As for the 360s crappy DRM system, what partially worked for me after I had to get my 360 refurbed due to RROD was recovering my gamertag, which retied most of my downloads to my new Xbox - the things I (still) have problems with are the optional iTunes support file that lets you play AAC encoded music, which I pretty much have to redownload every single frigging time I want to listen to AAC endoded music

The 360s HDDs are plug and play, but again, DLC is tied to both gamertag and machine - I kept my HDD when I had to return my 360.

I believe that recovering a gamertag also redownloads all of your savegames as well, but as mentioned before, I kept my HDD so it might have just used them. It took for fucking ever and downloaded a hell of a lot of data while recovering which is what makes me suspect it actually downloaded all of my last registered online save files though.

If you manage to recover your gamertag okay onto a new xbox, then you can just delete it off the old one - again, when I got my refurb 360 recovering my gamertag resolved my 'DLC was not downloaded on this specific Xbox!' issues, but I was using my original HDD which may make a difference or not - which you could then just give your sister as your stuff wont be tied to it anymore. Any DLC or XBLA games you purchased on your gamertag however will go back to demo versions / wont work anymore if the account that bought them isnt present on that Xbox.

Now the above all worked for me, but I've seen plenty of people who have said that recovering their gamertag did shit all, so If I were you, I would try recovering yuor gamertag on a 'fresh' HDD and seeing what you get from it in terms of access to DLC and savegames, then try transferring anything that didn't work across.

Apparently you can ring MS and get a refund of MS points for all your purchased DLC if you need to transfer it all to a new 360 due to them knwoing that their shitty DRM is fundamentally broken, but hopefully you wont have to put up with their customer support to do this.


tl;dr summary: 360 DRM is tied to both gamertag and console - any dlc attached to your gamertag will work on any console that gamertag is present upon as long as that gamertag is online (even silver accounts). reattaching dlc to a different console has various workarouns which sometimes work and sometimes dont, but at the end of the day you supposedly can call MS and get them to reset your 'console' id and let you use all your purchases offline again, but I only have anecdotal evidence for that.





...and on the flipside, all Wii dlc (VC and Wiiware) is locked only by console, so selling your console on has it all included, if you need a replacement Nintendo refund you Wii points totalling whatever you've purchased, and PS3 dlc is linked entirely by username and can be active on up to 5 different PS3s simultaneously, whether theyre connected to the internet or not.

Which is actually a bloody good way to go about it imo.

[Luriden]

All savegames will be lost, so back those up. Some XBLA saves are saved serverside, but very few, mainly just the games that keep track of your score. If you download a game and it sees that you have a score for blah blah blah on the last level of Alien Hominid that you did with your last console, then your gamertag will always have those levels unlocked. I know Marble Blast Ultra also does this. However, any XBLA game that keeps save files with very specific data (like Castlevania: SotN) need to be backed up to a memory card if you want to keep those. And of course, this counts 360 saves. NO 360 saves are saved online, you MUST back those up to a memory card or use the transfer cable if you want to use them on your Elite.

If you recover your gamertag to a new console and delete your gamertag off the told, afaik the content will not be available on that console. However, if you recover your gamertag to your new console, then on this new console you can download everything you once had, but it's online only. This means you must be signed into Live (silver or gold) at all times, otherwise it thinks it's a trial. Yes, this means that while live is down or during an internet outage, you lose access to it all.

It's total BS. I had about $300 worth of downloaded content on my last 360 that got stolen. I called MS about it and bitched with them for awhile and they refused to give me points, even though I called in 4 months before to report the console had been stolen before I got a new one and they had to cancel my Live account over the phone and mark it as lost/stolen. The only way they will refund you points to buy them again is if your 360 breaks and you have to send it in to be replaced, or if you have it replaced with another company, you can send MS your receipt and they might work with you. However, right on the official Xbox site they say that while transferring content to the Elite you'll lose offline access to your DLC.

[impetus]

Thanks guys. Appreciate the helpful answers. I decided yesterday to keep the Elite. As soon as I fired it up with 1080p HDMI for the first time, I immediately noticed the improvement in picture quality over 720p/1080i on component.

For right now, I'm just using my old HDD. I'll use the transfer kit when it arrives to port it all over to the 120 later.

Sucks that the DRM is locking me out when not signed in, but I'll live.

[impetus]

Microsoft released the awaited "DRM fix" to transfer licenses to a new console.

Instructions
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/syste ... migration/

FAQ
http://www.xbox.com/en-US/support/syste ... on/faq.htm