Either its happened to you in the past or claimed the time of someone on your friends list but recovering Gamertags has proven to be a chore. Fed up with the (way too long) 20 minute recovery process the team at THEBBPS decided to seek out another solution. In their search for answers around the Xbox 360 DRM issue the only notable solution was to access a Gamertag profile from a memory unit.
We wonder why gamers are forced to spend around $20 for a basic 64Mb unit to rid themselves of the trouble of wanting to play at another person's house with their profile. Well, mathematically it makes sense, $1 a minute for the 20 minutes it takes to recover sounds about right.
Oh, DRM. Fall in a well and die, kthxbai.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
5-08-2008 @ 6:10PM
Sporia said...
"Oh, DRM. Fall in a well and die, kthxba" hahhahahahahhahaha fall in in a well and die !!! hahaha nice work matos :P
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5-08-2008 @ 6:23PM
bigmac375 said...
if you must shorten, Xav pleez
5-08-2008 @ 6:27PM
c4v3man said...
I actually just purchased a MU tuesday so I could play a saved game with a friend on another xbox360. I figured "heck, might as well get one, so I can copy my profile over to his box as well...". You can imagine my suprise when the option for xbox live profiles is "move" and not "copy". That sucks pretty hard Microsoft, put it back. Even my yahoo music subscription allows me to have 3 or more computers with the same login/permissions on it...
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5-08-2008 @ 6:59PM
D Boy Flex said...
I have one also, for such times in which I want to travel to a friends house or have multiple game saves for one gamertag a la Assassins creed. I believe they store quite a bit of info to the tag. Take Halo 3 for example. I can take my tag to my bros house and play as my made character, cause it is part of my gamertag. Also, if you have noticed, the older a gamertag is, the larger the file size. Mine is nearly 9 megs, as opposed to a few kb for a new one. I believe it is move only cause if you changed something, say your custom character on H3 at your friends house, then it would have to update the next time you sign in to live on the other console. Therefore, you would have to wait for it to update (likely 20 mins again, cause who knows how much got changed) and we would be complaining about that too. Any way you slice it, the system is not perfect. Did they do it this way to sell MUs? maybe. Either way, I do like having the reassurance that if my HDD were to crash, I would only lose everything minus my Halo 3 character and a few other things I am sure. That surely makes it alright, especially since I have not touched H3 this year. Oh well. Life goes on.
5-08-2008 @ 8:35PM
[.sm0ke.] said...
You can't copy a gamertag because having three or four different versions of one gamertag would cause Microsoft some headaches. I'm too tired to try to explain why.
5-09-2008 @ 12:16AM
pibs said...
Turn off ur 360, take off the HDD, instert the MU and then do the recover and it shall save to your MU.
After thats done insert your HDD again without the MU and recover once again.
5-08-2008 @ 6:28PM
FiredCylinder said...
I'm no PS3 fanboy, but why is it that you can just log in on another friend's PS3 without having to wait for a long download, while the XBox makes you wait forever? I do suppose that since a lot of PS3 games make you wait through a lengthy install before you can play them, it balances out somewhat. But I still think it should be different.
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5-08-2008 @ 6:33PM
JAKEJAX said...
I am just guessing, but it could be because Live is a paid service and PS3 is not.
5-08-2008 @ 6:54PM
webster1990 said...
i don't know why the PS3 doesn't make you wait, but i think the 360 takes so long because it has to get not only the profile itself but also any progress online in games such as halo 3 or cod4, and also so that any xbla games and dlc purchased are still assigned to the profile ready to be downloaded again along with any achievements. I think anyway, tis the only way that i can think makes sense of the stupid download.
5-08-2008 @ 6:54PM
webster1990 said...
it took me near an hour to recover mine at a friends the other day.
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5-08-2008 @ 6:55PM
AndrewNeo said...
I bought a memory card because I was tired of recovery. I'm glad I did, though, it's so much easier just to leave it and the game saves I take to my friend's houses (GTA4, Rock Band, etc.) and just pull it out of my Xbox and go.
Also of note, your profile stores all your Halo 3 settings and stuff.
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5-08-2008 @ 7:47PM
Tony said...
I get the impression that there's more attached to the account than it might seem. If I recover gamertags with few achievements and played games, it takes a minute or two. If I get mine, it takes FOREVER.
I'm assuming this mostly has to do with Gamerscore and achievement searching, but still it seems really long.
I noticed after recovering my gamertag that some of my XBLA games also remembered certain things. Not that my saves were intact or anything, but for example, Jetpack Reloaded remembered the last level I had completed and I didn't have to start from 1 again.
So I don't know how all of that factors into it.
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5-08-2008 @ 7:58PM
JohnHeist said...
One time it took over an hour to recover at my friend's house.
I suspect I too shall be in the Memory Unit buying market soon....I'd considered it for awhile now, just glad to confirm it works and saves time.
How long does the move take if anybody knows? I was thinking I could keep it on my HD, and move it when I want to go to my friend's house if it's still fast.
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5-08-2008 @ 8:33PM
Gemini Ace said...
The move is pretty fast. Not near 20 minutes. Maybe 2.
5-09-2008 @ 10:50AM
Vcize said...
2 minutes? Moving a 7-10mb profile onto the MU or HD for me takes about 2 seconds.
5-08-2008 @ 8:13PM
Deezul said...
I bought a 64MB card back when MS said all the kiosks would have "special" content when you plugged in the card. I think Best Buy had a car or a theme once, but store specific goodies? Haven't seen them. Supposedly the new Kiosk updates will start putting more stuff out, but we'll see...
I have two 360s at home, so I keep my gamertag on it so I can easily move between the two, or go to a friends house. Check eBay; you might find a deal on one there.
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5-08-2008 @ 9:55PM
Anticrawl said...
I have two 360s at home as well, but to keep the move simple I just, you know, pop out that modular harddrive and snap it on the other 360. Seems to be the simplest solution unless you are wanting to add your profile to another console's memory for whatever reason.
5-09-2008 @ 12:14AM
Deezul said...
True enough - swapping HDs works. But what if your wife's profile is on one HD and yours is on the other? If I had bought a core, your plan works. But I have a Halo 3 and a Elite, and my wife and I play different games at different times... Can't do the HD swap then..
5-08-2008 @ 8:32PM
Gemini Ace said...
Only problem is when you leave the MU in your pants and wash them (like I did). MU still works, but I was out of commission for almost a week.
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5-08-2008 @ 8:40PM
Deathrace King said...
Gamertag Recovery was NEVER meant to bring your Gamertag to a friend's house. This was made clear by Major Nelson years ago! Recovery was designed for recovering your 'tag if you bought a new console or had to format your hard drive, etc.
My 'tag sits on a MU plugged into my console at all times. My game saves, however, are all on my hard drive. If I want to bring my 'tag over to a friend's house I just pop out the MU on my way out the door and plug it in wherever I go. Any achievements I unlock while at a friend's house are saved, and when I get home I just pop it back in my 360.
If you ever listen to Major's podcasts or even some of the Inside Xbox segments you'll notice that his Gamertag "lives" on an MU. That's the way to go for anyone who really needs to cart their Gamertag to other consoles.
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