Why Gamers Are Excited About the Xbox Network: Features and Benefits

The subscription service offers more than just games

The Xbox network, previously known as Xbox Live, is Microsoft's online service for gaming and content distribution for its gaming systems.

What Can You Do on the Xbox Network?

The Xbox Network lets you play games against other people online as well as download demos, trailers, and even full games from an in-console marketplace.

You'll choose a nickname (called a gamertag) which is how you're known to other people in any games you play. You can keep friends lists to stay in touch with real-life friends or new people you meet online you like to play with.

What Is Xbox Game Pass?

Xbox Game Pass is a subscription-based service that you can pay for monthly (or longer with a retail card). A Game Pass Core or Ultimate membership is necessary for online play, but it also gets you discounts on games and free titles to play.

Core costs $9.99 a month and gets you a small, rotating catalog of a few dozen first- and third-party titles that you can download and play for no additional cost. It's available on console or PC, but not both.

Ultimate, however, works on both console and PC for $16.99 a month. And it has a library of hundreds of games that you can download or even stream. Either way, you'll want a fast internet connection to make sure everything works quickly and smoothly.

PayPal

We highly recommend you use the gift and subscription cards noted above instead of putting your credit card info on your Xbox network account. Basically, if you don't put your credit card info on your account, there's nothing for hackers to potentially steal.

Microsoft has greatly upped the security on Xbox Network accounts over the last few years, so getting hacked isn't as common as it used to be (it was never exactly common, though, just to be clear), but it's better to be safe.

You do still have to put some form of payment option into your account, however, and we recommend using PayPal. It offers an extra couple of layers of safety and security on top of what Microsoft already does to keep your information secure.