A lot of people got double-screwed when there were all those 360s failing. Not only did your damn console die, but if you had downloaded content like XBLA games, chances are it wouldn’t be on your new console when you got that. Until now, recourse has been difficult, but the license transfer tool lets you consolidate any licenses you had on your last four systems that died. However, I recommend reading the FAQ, otherwise you might miss stuff like this:
How often can I use the tool?
The tool can only be used once every twelve months.Why can I use the tool only once per twelve months?
The tool is intended to allow consumers to consolidate their licenses they purchased on multiple consoles to a primary console. It is not intended to continually move content between multiple consoles.
Right. Because everybody likes artificial limitations on content they’ve paid for.
Amazing solution; just keep track of what we payed for and let us re-download it whenever. If the Nintendo Virtual Console can do it, why can’t MS? Seems like a solution that would make life easier for everyone.
Read that FAQ, though…
You can already re-download anything you’ve paid for, it’s just that if you go to another system, you have to be signed into Live in order to play it. So if someone else wants to play the game you bought, or you want to play offline, then the license has to be assigned to the system that you’re playing on.
The problem with the “once a year” thing is this.
360’s still fail.
Case in point, I just decided a month ago to get a new 360. I had previously purchased content, and used the License Transfer Tool to reassign the licenses to my new console.
The problem? 2 days later (Yes, days) The console went belly up. Not even two weeks after I purchased it. I exchanged it at the store, because let’s face it, 5 minute turn around, or 2 weeks? Not a tough question. Now I can’t use the tool to retrieve my content, and have spent a total of 3 hours on the phone with MS basically being told that I’m screwed.
License Transfer Tool = <FTW
I have had the same problem as mortimer, I’m actually on my 4th 360 console though. My 2nd one died, so I bought the third, transferred the licenses and it died like 3 months later, now I can only play my games online, and my girlfriend (who doesn’t have a live account and used my gold membership to download games, cannot play the games she paid for on her own account without buying a gold membership. It is utter crap.
i don’t have 360 and i don’t plan to - i just followed link on some blog but after reading your comments i have 1 major question:
Why on god’s sake are you buing 4th the same console if 3 broke up after few days/months:]?
Doing this you ensure M$ that it’s ok to make shitty, error prone hardware because this way they’ll sell more units…
It’s not that they’re buying consoles, its that they’re on their 4th repair from Microsoft. People count number of consoles as 1 being initial purpose and each subsequent send in/repair/get back is a new number. So the person on the 4th console bought one and has had it repaired 3 times.
The repair is free under warranty, too. So, they haven’t paid for anything.