You bought your Xbox 360, and couldn’t wait to play – now you’ve already gained some Gamerscore, but your account is an “offline account” and not an Xbox Live Account! You don’t want to sign up for a new account, because you’ll lose your Gamerscore and Achievements! Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
Before you start this process, you should have a Windows LiveID / Microsoft Account that does NOT have a Gamertag associated with it already. Don’t have one? Just sign up for an email address at Hotmail.com, Live.com, or Outlook.com (and don’t ask how to remove a Gamertag from a LiveID – you might get lucky working with Technical Support, but to my knowledge there is NO WAY to do it – even if you transfer the Gamertag to a different LiveID, a placeholder name is created on your old LiveID – so it can never “not” have a Gamertag associated with it again!). *phew* that’s a lot of Microsoft lingo. Anyway, onward!
- Start your Xbox 360 and sign in as your current “offline” Gamertag.
- Press the Guide Button.
- Select Join Xbox Live.
- Select Continue.
- Enter your first name.
- Enter the email address of your Microsoft Account.
- Enter the password of your Microsoft Account.
- Verify locale and age, select Continue.
- Verify privacy settings, select Continue.
- Choose Accept for the Terms of Service.
At this point, a new Gamertag will be generated for you automatically. Because the name you used in your offline may already be taken, it doesn’t try to register with that one – instead it creates a new Gamertag for you. It would be nice if it at least tried to register your Gamertag before assigning a generic one, but since it doesn’t, you may now want to proceed to our article on How to change your Xbox Live Gamertag.