So I know you'd probably think I'm an idiot to buy a new Xbox months before I plan to get the Xbox One, but hear me out.

I've had an Xbox Elite for 3 years and it's been fine, absolutely no problems. Anyway my girlfriend has been playing more and more Xbox with me and I was thinking of getting her an Xbox so we could play with eachother on weeknights when I'm not at her house (she's about an hour away)... Also we just got a TV for the bedroom in her house and were thinking of getting another streaming box for it (have one in the living room)...

So I get to thinking, hey I can get the 250gb Xbox Slim for $99 and she can have my Elite and use it for Netflix and such and possibly play games on... I know locking in to paying $15/mo for Xbox Live is seen as a ripoff when you can get a year for about $40 through Amazon, but at the same time I only have to drop $99 instead of $299 up front and I'm going to buy Xbox Live anyway, so why not, right?

When I get the Xbox One I'll be able to use the subscription I'm locked into on it as well (as far as I'm aware they've said your current subscription will carry over, right?)

So anyway I locked into the deal with Microsoft and have the coupon allowing me to pick up an Xbox for $99 at GameStop tomorrow (it's closed for the night).

I feel like I'm killing three birds with one stone, right? We get an additional streaming box, we can play Halo together over Live, and I get a shiny new Xbox as opposed to aging one..... I guess a fourth bird will be the fact that I don't have to drag my Xbox to her house on the weekends, I can just download my profile on hers.

Thoughts?

Also I guess I'm going to have to get a 360 data transfer cable tomorrow, is that process pretty simple? Anything I should do before I begin transferring everything?

I don't know about any of that transferring stuff.

I was gonna say to wait and see what they do to release a newer 360, like the disc-less rumor. But you already have a coupon, so whatever. I think the disc-less 360 might be a good idea, so you can hook it up to the One and stream backwards-compatible stuff. But whatever, do what feels right.

I was thinking about that, but if the new model were discless and I gave my old one to my girlfriend I wouldn't be able to play all my disc based games. I have a handful of digital download 360 games, but games that weren't digital day one I have discs for.

That was dumb and a waste of money. That's money you could have used to buy the next thing and it's doubly dumb when they have yet to confirm if the sub will carry over or not. Not to mention people are now rushing to get rid of their old systems so you could find a second hand one for around $99 that could have easily been used as the second room one.

Phil Harrison confirmed Gold account subscriptions will carry over. I don't do second hand. I wanted a new one and she could have the old one. As for it being a waste of money, it will only cost about $80 more in the long run than if I bought a new one up front ($299 + $80 for 2 years of live vs $99 + $360 for 2 years of live

Besides, I think I've changed the plan from us both getting Xbox One's at launch to just getting one. At that point I'll give her the newer 360 and we can pass the Elite on to someone else (free probably).

Phil Harrison, a corporate vice president with Microsoft, confirmed to video-game blog Polygon that the same Gold membership will apply to both systems. Xbox Live Gold subscribers who buy an Xbox One won't have to ante up for another subscription.

Plus, that same single membership can be shared by multiple people, according to Ben Kilgore, a corporate vice president for Microsoft's Xbox Program Management. Each user will still have access to their own settings and customizations.

"We want to make sure that you and your son both have your own account," Kilgore told Polygon, using the example of a parent and child sharing the same Live Gold membership. "We want you log in to get your stuff, and when he logs in to get his stuff. On that console, if you have Gold, he can use Gold as well."

@jdh5153: To each their own but the rest still applies. If it's just going to be a back up box in a spare room you can get a used one for dirt cheap and still save money on buying live cards.

Glad to hear that they are keeping with the gold live thing as that was the main thing I was waiting to hear about what they were doing to put the final nail in the coffin on whether or not I was going to buy the next xbox. It's a rip off and a scam so I won't be buying one if it's like it was on the 360 and that means more money for me to spend on other things. I refuse to pay a monthly fee just to unlock the online half of games I bought and to have services that are free literally everywhere else being locked behind a paywall.

Anywho, it's your money so do with it as ya please. Just my three cents on the subject.

Well if it's true that you only need one Gold account for the entire Xbox that's certainly an improvement. So you could have like a 'master account' subscribed and all other accounts on that Xbox could access the Gold features without subscribing. That'd be pretty cool.

If all I wanted was the extra box I would've gone that route, but I've been pondering replacing mine with a 360 S for awhile and I feel like the $99 + 2 year contract route is better than dropping $299 up front. Especially when that $15/mo will also cover my service for the Xbox One. So really only about $60 of that is going to be for using Live on the 360 and then the rest of the two year contract will be my Live for the One.

I have like 6 months of prepaid time applied to my account already unfortunately, so I guess that will all be added on after the 2 years of $15/mo. Either way, I'm Gold for the next 2.5 years.

It sounds like your mind was made up...do you need us to validate your decision?

I would've just picked up a used Xbox 360 S and a 12 month live card, but if you're down with paying $15/mo for Live on a system that's in its last couple years... go for it.

@extomar: was mostly curious if anyone else had gone this route of obtaining a 360 via contract, and also wanted to know how the data transfer is..

I'm not sure why you're asking us for thoughts. Seems to me that you have this all figured out. If it works for you, then who cares what people on the internet think?

I'm just curious if anyone else has purchased it this way and what they thought about the process.

We think that is about as riveting as telling us why you ate a hamburger instead of a chicken sandwich. :)

In my opinion, xbox live isn't worth a fucking dime.

Since you already took the leap, all I'd say is, "Good luck. Hope it works out for you."

If anyone's curious, I was able to redeem the coupon for the 250GB Spring Bundle (1 month of Xbox Live, Darksiders II and Batman Arkham City), though it was complicated. GameStop told me that they were allowing people to purchase that version of the console since they no longer sell the standard 250gb console, yet they received an e-mail from corporate saying that the POS would no longer allow people to redeem the coupon on that console. They allowed me to try anyway and it accpeted the coupon so they were pretty much like 'wow, corporate error in your favor, we'll sell it to you' and here it is:

Now, about the data transfer. Should I set up the new Xbox first or do the data transfer right away, how does that work?