Messed around with licenses and 360s

[casterofdreams]

The Xbox 360 has a dual license system: one for the hardware (any gamertag profile on the hardware can play) and one for the Live profile which requires an online connection at all times.

I have a back-up Xbox 360. My main 360 has all of the DLC, XBLA games, and all of the necessary title updates and hasn't hit the Xbox Live server in a couple of months.

So what I did was similar to the PSP, transfer the hardware licenses and downloaded everything tied to my account to the back-up 360. License transfers can be done via the account menu of the back-up unit. It doesn't require the old unit to have licenses removed. All the downloading took 3 days because of the 200+ GB of data. Then I disconnected the internet on the console and effectively made a back-up. Both 360s won't be hitting a server ever again. If my main hits a server then it'll remove the hardware licenses and have to be logged into Live to play any DLC or XBLA game.

You can transfer licenses every 4 months. If you have a back-up or plan on getting one this can help.

[marurun]

I don't have a 360, and probably won't get one, but this is useful information for those who do own one. I'm sure many have had to either replace or repair theirs.