How to Get Your New Xbox 360 Wired

So you’re looking at getting an Xbox 360? That’s great! The 360 is one of the more popular consoles right now. It has the games, the hardware and the live content to back it up. But which one do you get? Do you want an Xbox Live subscription? What are they good for? All the answers and more are right here.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Which 360 Do I Buy?

1. Buy the Core system if you are a casual gamer. If you’re not planning on downloading a lot of content (movies, trailers, clips, game demos, game trailers, themes, game content) and you don’t mind having a controller with wires in it, go for the Core system. It is $100 cheaper and dispenses with some of the features that, unless you’re planning on really getting into the Live culture, are a bit much.
2. Buy the Pro system if you are interested in downloading all of the content mentioned above, can’t stand wired controllers and like having a 12-gig hard drive to store goodies on. The Pro is $100 more expensive than the Core system, but it comes with a wireless controller (and support for three more), an Ethernet cable, a 1-month Gold Live subscription and the High Definition connectors needed to make the 360’s graphics really pop.
3. Consider this: If you have a High Definition TV and an Ethernet connection, buy the Pro. If you don’t have either of those, buy the Core. Live is only available through Ethernet, and the Core system comes with the regular three-plug connector instead of the five-plug HD connector.

Connect Your New 360

4. Match the plugs with their spots in the back. If you got a Core system, it will just have the power and 3-plug Audio/Visual (AV) jack. The Pro system will come with an Ethernet cable and a 5-plug HD jack.
5. Plug the Ethernet cable (if you have one) into your cable modem or router.
6. Plug the AV cables into their homes on your TV or home-theater device. The yellow plug goes into the yellow jack, red plug into red jack and white plug into white jack.
7. Plug the HD cables into your system if you got the Pro. Same deal as the AV cables: Match the color plugs with the same color socket. The only hitch here is that you do not plug the yellow cable into anything; just leave it hanging. No worries, there isn’t even a yellow socket, so there’s nothing else to do with it.
8. Plug the power adapter into the back of the 360, then string the other end to a power strip/surge protector. If you do not already have a surge protector, take 7 dollars to any electronics store and purchase one. Consider it cheap insurance for your electronics. Nearly all surge-protector manufacturers have a guarantee that states, “If there is a power surge and the gear you plug into this gets fried, we’ll reimburse you the cost of the hardware.”
9. Connect your controller cable if you got a Core system. If you got the Pro, just stick the batteries in it. You’re all fired and ready to go!

Xbox Live

10. There are two levels of subscription: Silver, which is free but doesn’t allow you to play games online or do much of anything other than use the marketplace or check scores; and the paid Gold subscription, which allows you to do absolutely anything. If you don’t have an Ethernet connection, sadly, you cannot connect to Live.
11. Use the Silver subscription if you don’t plan on playing games online; buy the Gold subscription if you do. You can buy a Gold subscription online or buy a prepaid card for a certain length of time and input the card’s code onto Live. The subscription fee works out to around $4/month.