What happens to your downloaded stuff if/when consoles croak?

[PingSpike]

So, I kind of want to play rock band. But I currently own no console.

Initially I was going to buy an xbox 360 since there's a couple games I want to play on that. However, after watching my brother in laws console die 2-3 times on him despite limited use and the plethora of stories regarding different death rates of the different chipset versions, blah, blah, etc...I just don't think I feel like wading through that minefield. If the xbox 360 dies out of warrenty can I still save all the stuff I downloaded if I bought a replacement console? The answer for this seems like yes, since its tied to an account AFAIK.

I kind of want a Wii anyway, not a ton...kind of. And if I have to buy a console it doesn't seem to have any signifigant bed shitting issues and now actually appears available for purchase. But some questions remain with regard to the Wii DLC model: I need to buy a SD card to save more then a small amount of songs, but what happens if the console dies 3 years from now? What happens if the SD gets lost or fails? Is all the shit I bought and paid for then gone as well? There appears to be less songs available for Wii...are they working to bring this to parity? I know I need RB2 for DLC...but is there a way to get the RB songs as well like with the 360? I don't want to have to switch disks to play different songs.

The PS3 really offers me nothing I'm interested in outside that it seems more robust then the 360. What happens to DLC when this guy dies outside of warrenty?

 

[Kabob]

Get the 360. Make sure it's a Jasper (or new Valhalla unit), Anandtech has an article on how to spot them. All the items you download are attached to your account. You can transfer all the licences over to a new console if you have a problem.

Also, if you install them to your hard drive and your 360 dies you just detach the drive and ship the console, one button you push to remove it.

I've been a 360 owner for almost 3 years now and I've had my 360 die once. Other than that it's been rock solid.

I've got a Wii too and I'm not sure how the DLC works. With M$ it's automatically tied to your account and you can go online and do the transfer yourself. With the Wii I remember reading from someone who had their Wii die trying to get their purchased content transfered to the new Wii and Nintendo was fighting it pretty hard, not sure why.

 

[Pheran]

The Xbox 360 is FAR superior to the Wii for Rock Band DLC because of the hard drive. In fact, the Wii doesn't even have all of the DLC available for the other consoles (they are slowly releasing the back catalog). If the console dies you just move the hard drive to a new unit, if the hard drive dies you can redownload your DLC since it is tied to your Xbox Live account. Also, the 360 is the only console that will have the full-blown Rock Band Network (at least for a while), so if you are interested in Rock Band with DLC I strongly suggest the 360. The modern versions (Falcon, Jasper) don't have nearly as many failure problems as the launch models.

EDIT: I forgot to mention instrument compatibility across different music games. This sucks on the Wii, on the 360 many instruments work across all games.

EDIT2: Oh, and you can't export your RB1 songs into RB2 on the Wii.

 

[Queasy]

PS3 DLC is tied to your PSN account but I'm not sure how they handle transferring DLC from one console to the other beyond just downloading it again or copying it from the HDD of the dead PS3. I believe you can have DLC you've purchased on up to 5 PS3s.

Wii DLC is very tricky because it is tied to the console and not to any account. So you end up having to contact Nintendo customer support and hope they believe you enough to transfer licenses from one console to another.

In addition to tieing DLC to your account, MS also offers a license transfer tool to transfer DLC from one 360 to another (can only be used once a year).

 

[Kabob]

Originally posted by: Queasy
In addition to tieing DLC to your account, MS also offers a license transfer tool to transfer DLC from one 360 to another (can only be used once a year).

You know, they say it can only be used once a year but I bet if you used it once and then your 360 died they'd reset it for you easily enough. Not that I can think of any other reason to want to do it more than once though...

I did the licence transfer just a few months ago. It's pretty simple.

 

[PingSpike]

Ok, thanks guys...maybe I'll go the 360 route. If I buy a 20gb hard drive and a new xbox 360 arcade I'm not going to need a transfer kit or anything am I?

And the arcade apparently doesn't come with an HDMI cable...can I just buy a cheap one from monoprice? I'd rather not buy that $35 official one. Total bullshit.

 

[herkulease]

Originally posted by: kabob983

Originally posted by: Queasy
In addition to tieing DLC to your account, MS also offers a license transfer tool to transfer DLC from one 360 to another (can only be used once a year).

You know, they say it can only be used once a year but I bet if you used it once and then your 360 died they'd reset it for you easily enough. Not that I can think of any other reason to want to do it more than once though...

I did the licence transfer just a few months ago. It's pretty simple.

If the system died and its gets repaired by MS they automatically do it for you.

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Ok, thanks guys...maybe I'll go the 360 route. If I buy a 20gb hard drive and a new xbox 360 arcade I'm not going to need a transfer kit or anything am I?

And the arcade apparently doesn't come with an HDMI cable...can I just buy a cheap one from monoprice? I'd rather not buy that $35 official one. Total bullshit.

Yes. Don't buy the official one.

 

[PieIsAwesome]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Ok, thanks guys...maybe I'll go the 360 route. If I buy a 20gb hard drive and a new xbox 360 arcade I'm not going to need a transfer kit or anything am I?

And the arcade apparently doesn't come with an HDMI cable...can I just buy a cheap one from monoprice? I'd rather not buy that $35 official one. Total bullshit.

Yep, that's what I am using.

If you do not plan to use the sound from HDMI and do not want to buy the overpriced dongle, you will need to crack open the casing on the composite video adapter thing to use the stereo sound output cables. You should also make sure that the HDMI cable you are buying has a slim enough plug to fit with the audio/video cable. A new HDMi cable I bought from monoprice wouldn't fit with the audio/video cable because the connector was too thick, but an older one did. I use the sound from HDMI so it doesn't matter for me.

 

[AstroManLuca]

You can also buy a component or VGA cable for the Xbox 360 from Monoprice. The Arcade only ships with a composite cable.

HDMI is the best, though. Again, the only problem is what PieIsAwesome mentioned: you can't physically fit both an HDMI cable and a standard Xbox 360 video cable on the console at the same time, so unless you're using HDMI for audio, you have to mod your composite cable and use that instead.

 

[PingSpike]

thanks for the info, I'll probably just mod the cable. So I won't need a transfer cable or anything if I buy a hard drive to go with it? I'm thinking no since the memory card it comes with attaches differently? Sorry, I don't really know anything about consoles...I haven't had once since SNES.

 

[Dari]

Does Microsoft have a HDD backup service like the PS3 where you can backup your HDD to an external drive? That seems more convenient considering how cheap HDDs are these days than redownloading everything.

 

[Queasy]

Originally posted by: Dari
Does Microsoft have a HDD backup service like the PS3 where you can backup your HDD to an external drive? That seems more convenient considering how cheap HDDs are these days than redownloading everything.

Nope. Not without hacking.

The other option would be to get that Datel memory card that you can use a MicroSD card up to 16GB to backup your important stuff like gamesaves.

 

[Krakn3Dfx]

Originally posted by: Queasy
PS3 DLC is tied to your PSN account but I'm not sure how they handle transferring DLC from one console to the other beyond just downloading it again or copying it from the HDD of the dead PS3. I believe you can have DLC you've purchased on up to 5 PS3s..

Yep, I have 2 PS3s, and I keep the same DLC and stuff I bought on PSN on both systems, and I can share that with up to 3 other people at the same time.

Good stuff. I <3 PS3.

 

[Pheran]

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Ok, thanks guys...maybe I'll go the 360 route. If I buy a 20gb hard drive and a new xbox 360 arcade I'm not going to need a transfer kit or anything am I?

And the arcade apparently doesn't come with an HDMI cable...can I just buy a cheap one from monoprice? I'd rather not buy that $35 official one. Total bullshit.

The arcade doesn't come with a Live headset either - save yourself hassle and get a Pro with the 60G drive. I would have filled up the 20G a long time ago with RB DLC and game installs.

 

[A Casual Fitz]

Originally posted by: Krakn3Dfx

Originally posted by: Queasy
PS3 DLC is tied to your PSN account but I'm not sure how they handle transferring DLC from one console to the other beyond just downloading it again or copying it from the HDD of the dead PS3. I believe you can have DLC you've purchased on up to 5 PS3s..

Yep, I have 2 PS3s, and I keep the same DLC and stuff I bought on PSN on both systems, and I can share that with up to 3 other people at the same time.

Good stuff. I <3 PS3.

I'll <3 it too when I can snag one for ~$100 used. This isn't a complaint but simply me being patient

 

[Krazy4Real]

Definitely get a PS3 or 360 for Rock Band.

 

[Kabob]

Originally posted by: Pheran

Originally posted by: PingSpike
Ok, thanks guys...maybe I'll go the 360 route. If I buy a 20gb hard drive and a new xbox 360 arcade I'm not going to need a transfer kit or anything am I?

And the arcade apparently doesn't come with an HDMI cable...can I just buy a cheap one from monoprice? I'd rather not buy that $35 official one. Total bullshit.

The arcade doesn't come with a Live headset either - save yourself hassle and get a Pro with the 60G drive. I would have filled up the 20G a long time ago with RB DLC and game installs.

Pro will work as well, just make sure it's one of the new Jasper units.

If you buy an Arcade you will not need a transfer kit for a new 20GB/60GB HDD, that's only for transferring data from an old HDD to a new one.

What I recently did:
Xbox 360 Arcade "Jasper" - used 1 month, still under warranty, bought local - $150
60GB HDD - "Like New" on ebay - $50 shipped

I had a Zephry 360 Pro w/20GB hdd, borrowed a transfer cable from someone on Hardforum, transferred everything over, and sold my old 360. The seller of the Arcade and I called Xbox and transferred ownership of the console over to me before I handed him the cash, all is well.

Oh, and headsets are cheap.

 

[Piuc2020]

Originally posted by: Queasy
PS3 DLC is tied to your PSN account but I'm not sure how they handle transferring DLC from one console to the other beyond just downloading it again or copying it from the HDD of the dead PS3. I believe you can have DLC you've purchased on up to 5 PS3s.

Wii DLC is very tricky because it is tied to the console and not to any account. So you end up having to contact Nintendo customer support and hope they believe you enough to transfer licenses from one console to another.

In addition to tieing DLC to your account, MS also offers a license transfer tool to transfer DLC from one 360 to another (can only be used once a year).

You can download an unlimited number of times on up to 5 different PS3s. Once you have activated the DLC on 5 PS3s, it's game over for you indefinitely.