To sum it up quick, this is the best deal you can purchase for Xbox Live.
Here is a quick breakdown:
1 month via Microsoft = $7.99 = $7.99/month
3 months via Microsoft = $19.99 = $6.66/month
12 months via Microsoft = $49.99 = $4.17/month
12+1 months via Amazon = $45.00 = $3.46/month
This card comes with THIRTEEN (13) months of Xbox Live for cheaper than directly from Xbox. I fully recommend purchasing Live via Amazon, but the choice is yours. Xbox 360 Live 12 Month Gold Card plus 1 Month Bonus
I spent quite a bit of time reading the reviews for this Gold Card. The single biggest problem I read about was how people needed to scratch off the back of the card to access the 25-digit code needed to activat it. If a person scratched too hard, the code became unreadable and the card was no good. There was supposibly no way retrieve the numbers once they were illegible. When my card arrived, I was expecting to have to go through this process. But to my plesant surprise, all I had to do was PEEL BACK a piece of perferated strip from the back of the card. No scratching involved at all. Maybe due to so many complaints, they decided to fix the problem and make it easier. Who knows, but at least I did not distroy the card or scratch so hard the numbers became unreadable.
Another concern I had was WHEN to use this card. I only used about 1 week of my "Free One Month Gold Membership" that came with my new X-Box 360. Should I risk renewing now and possibly loosing my remaining 3 "free" weeks included in my month long trial? Or should I wait until the free month is almost over and use my card then? I have read that if you let your month expire, all the stuff you have accumilated on that user profile is gone. You will have to start over from scratch. I decided to take a chance and use my card the next day. After I followed the simple instruction on my card, and entered the 25-digit code on my 360, I got an email from the email address I used to register with. It stated that I had extened my memberhsip until October 15 of 2009. Since my origional membership WOULD HAVE expired on September 15, and the card I purchased was for 13 Months, that would put me at October 15, 2009. So for anybody who is worried that the Gold Membership will not let your trial month "run out" before it activates, dont worry about it. You wont loose any time. It will run concurrently with your free month, or any membership you already have, before it activates.
The only other complaint I have seen in regards to this card is how long it takes to recieve it from Amazon. This I cannot really help with because I use Amazon Prime. I spend enough money with Amazon, and do enough of my shopping through them, that Amazon Prime is just about the only way to go for me. Expecially since I live in a rural area and do not have alot of the electronic stores or discount outlets you would normally find in larger cities. I can tell you this: It took me 4 days to get my card. Normally Amazon Prime has everything at my doorstep within 2 days. I was not too worried becasue I still had 3 weeks left on my trial membership. But if I did NOT use Amazon Prime, or if I only had a couple days left before my membership expired, I might have considered purchasing it locally for the extra money. So my advice is to either buy early and expect the longer than usual delays, or go Prime and get it within 4 days.
With the price of this card being about 10 dollars cheaper then Wal-Mart, and also giving you the extra month for free, this card is definately worth the money. ANYBODY who already has Amazon Prime would be a fool to buy this card at the store. If you DONT have Prime, and your membership will expire soon, maybe it would be better to get it at your local store and eat the difference in price. But for me and MY experience, I could not have asked for a easier time. That is why I am giving this review 5 Gold Stars. I hope this review helps.
After ordering this online xbox card I waited 2-3 days patiently. Upon arrival I giddily activated my xbox live gold account with the information found on the back of the card. Simple enough right? Well, that when everything went down hill. I didn't stop playing Halo 3 online. Then I got playing other games like Gears of War and Rainbow Six Las Vegas. I go to work 8 hours a day and instead of socializing after work I immediately boot up the 360 and go to town on it. It is now all I do and I have no friends. It is all due to this product. Purchase if you don't already have friends or are looking to rid yourself of others.
On a whim, I decided to look on Amazon for this, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that it was a few dollars cheaper on Amazon. Granted, I would need to wait for it to arrive in the mail, but since Microsoft gives a one-month advance warning before one's Xbox Live membership expires, that was not an issue.
When you buy this card, you get an extra month. That's 13 months for a great price.
Xbox Live is the leading service as far as online experiences on gaming consoles is concerned.
There are tons of arcade games you can purchase and download, movies to rent, tv episodes to buy (both past series and present).
Xbox Live gives you worldwide leaderboards on almost every single Xbox 360 game available when you are connected to live. You can chat with friends too.
This item is worth it and makes a great gift for any Xbox 360 gamer.
Some of the negative reviews complain about scratching too hard and losing the code and therefore their money. Those reviews are for an older generation of this card; the one I got (11/2008) has a tear-off piece of paper to reveal the code. Entering the code online was a snap.
I got the gold membership because it enhances my NetFlix subscription. The new Netflix/Xbox Gold feature lets users of both watch (most) Netflix instant streaming movies on their Xbox. The video quality has so far been excellent (even on the large screen); better than what I've seen on laptops. I'm looking forward to HD streaming but none of the 300 (so far) titles had any appeal to me.
Update: Turns out Netflix allows unlimited streaming for most of its plans. Their $8.99 plan gives one DVD at a time and unlimited streaming via PC and/or XBox. Streaming experiences have so far been excellent. - Xbox Live - Xbox Live Card - Xbox 360 Live - Gift Idea'
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