Re: The last two posts..

MS had a list of things that I had purchased, and the points needed to put on a separate account than my main one, so that they could be retied to the console. If I looked up a game on my main tag, it would show it was already downloaded and I could only redownload it and play it while on Live. In order to tie it back to the console so that all tags on the box could play, it had to be repurchased via a different tag.

This isn't something that was automatic, as I had to call MS and then fax them in my receipt with their trouble ticket. They then called me back about a week later with some points card codes that I could redeem.

Stolen from IGN via CAG, great deal on points + Halo 3 for those interested:

Go to Best Buy: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1118841876708
Choose the Points for $4.99 + Halo 3 offer
Go to your cart and change the quantity of points from 1 to 3
Voila, Halo 3 + 3 1600 point cards for $74.96

Select pickup to avoid being charged $10+ to ship three point cards.

Thanks for posting this. I gave it a shot. Unfortunately, due to the CC points deal, all the BBs around here have no point cards in stock (due to all the pricematching at BB). So I had to have them shipped and pay for the shipping. But still a nice deal. Hopefully it goes thru... thanks again for posting it.

I admit, I'd be tempted. I have no real interest in Halo 3 since Halo 2 bored me, but for $15 above the price of the points, I would have considered it. If I didn't already get 9600 points this week thanks to the CC deal

Passed it on to a friend though that is much more likely to cancel his other pre-order for this. Thanks!

The Halo + 3 cards deal can also be combined with Madden08, which will get you another $10-off. Assuming you are going to get both Madden and Halo3 anyhow, it comes out to $10 off and 4800 points for $15. Not bad at all, but only if you would have bought the games at full price anyhow.

I apologize for my density, I'm just trying to make sure this clicks in my head. (Basically if I buy content, I want to be able to use it with no additional restrictions if their hardware breaks.
Gamertag "One" is a Gold account, on 360 #1. I buy some XBLA games and content. Everyone who uses that console can access it, online or off, but I can't take it anywhere.
360 #1 breaks. I get a replacement. I can either:
* log in to Live as gamertag "One" whenever I want to use that content. Or
* call MS, confirm to them I bought the online stuff and that they replaced the unit (even though it's all in their computer anyway), start a new free silver account "Two", lose access to the stuff in account "One", use the points to re-buy the stuff under account "Two", it now belongs to Console 2 and tag "Two", but can be used by any tag using that console.
- Is that correct?
- Does that seem like a major PITA to anybody else? Nintendo may not give a crap about online play, but they made my Wii repair/exchange easy, all I had to do was redownload the content (which can't be transferred to another console either, AFAIK.)
Is this something they're likely to continue doing, but they just don't advertise it? Or were you a special case?

thanks.

On a more pleasant note, I picked up the Live Vision Gold set for 49.xx today from BJ's, that seemed like a pretty good price.

Halo/Points: Seems pretty good, if you're into buying Halo. I'm sure there will be some promos/specials, but ~45$ worth, probably not. Wow, BB.com's shipping charges are rapacious.

This may be the same thing that the last guy asked, but, hypothetically:

I could upgrade to the Elite, download everything on my main gold account, call Microsoft, fax them the receipt for my new 360 (the Elite), and they'd refund all points for everything I've ever downloaded on my gold account to my wife's silver account? Both accounts would then have access to the downloaded content?

There's no pickup option for Halo 3 yet (obviously), but does anyone know if you can change it to in-store pickup closer to release? I'd jump on this deal but I want to get Halo 3 on release day, and the standard shipping kinda kills that.

Edit: Seems like you can do pickup for the standard edition but not the limited edition. I kinda want the limited edition, but I guess I can live without it to get this deal. Or maybe I could do an in-store exchange when I go to pick it up. I think it's worth a shot - thanks for posting about this!

I set mine up for pickup (I had to choose pickup location for both it and the cards separately).

Edit: Yeah, standard
this is one thing I don't need the LE for...a tin and a "making of" dvd.

dtCarson and abrg923. You got it. That's exactly how it works. Definitely a PITA, and I was hoping they'd offer a backend solution in the last dashboard update, but they didn't. With so many consoles flaking out, you'd think they might find a way to unbind and rebind content.

Hell...I'm thrilled. It's better than nothing.

It also allows for possible abuse...for example, say I downloaded a shitty arcade game, and decided that I didn't want it again. I could just download something else with the points.

Definitely interesting. Do they give you the points for all expansion packs/XBLA games, or are gamerpics/things of that nature also included? And how do you get to the right people to do this for you? (Specific department you need to ask for, certain way to word it, etc)

Why? Why are people willing to settle? Is the privilege of spending "Billy Bucks" that valuable to people?

It doesn't take a super computer installation for them to detach the serial number of your old 360 and attach the S/N of your new one. It's plain laziness and lack of concern for paying customers on their part.

I'm willing to settle because it's the only option being offered. Obviously it makes more sense for them to do it your way, but that's not an option available to me at this time. I can call and bitch all day long, and they're not going to magically offer the option you mentioned.

I ran into a weird problem today ...

I ws playing a little before work. I played one game of Pac-Man (5 minutes) and one game of Bomberman. Midway through the game of Bomberman, I noticed the picture was starting to look strange -- staticy, with ghosted images. Basically, like a TV with a poor signal back in the days of rabbit-ears. I wasn't sure if it was my 360 or the TV, so I turned the 360 off and switched to my cable signal, which was fine. "Great, I thought ... looks like there's a coffin in my immediate future."

But then I fired the 360 up and played for another 5 or 10 minutes and there were no problems. And I played for about an hour tonight and still no problems. So now I don't know what is going on.

Mine did that. When you start getting the checkerboard start to worry. It's only a matter of days.

Ditto - took only a couple days to brick.

If you select in-store pickup for Halo 3 are you pretty much guaranteed to be able to pick it up on the release date?

I'm pretty sure that every major retailer will have approximately 12,000 copies per store.

It's pretty much like Madden. They'll have a whole display of them (and not enough people to buy them) no doubt.

My launch unit took all of about 15 minutes to brick after the checkerboard.

At the time, the only things I had purchased were XBLA titles (about $80 worth). All I did was call the standard 1-800 number and explain my situation. After being put on hold for a bit, they gave me their fax number so I could fax in the receipt and the ticket number. I also typed up a letter explaining the situation and a breakdown of all of the points as well. After about two weks or so, I got a call from MS with someone to read me off some point codes. It took forever, as they gave me 4 $20 codes and a $5 code, I believe. And I made them read it back a shitload of times, to make sure I had the code written down right. In retrospect, I should've just sat here and entered the codes immediately on xbox.com. I'll do that in the future if I ever upgrade to an Elite or whatnot.

Ya, there was a huge discussion about this on CAG. Pretty much if you complain that your "family" wants to be able to play the game too, they'll give you codes for points. This can be especially advantageous if you don't have a "family" haha...

Dammit! The deal above won't let you do three cards now. I'm missing all the points card deals!

Changing the quantity from 1 to 3 now jacks up the price. Two cards at regular price and one at $4.99.

Looks like the best buy halo 3 deal is fixed. You can only add 1 MS Pts card for $4.99 to your cart now.