• Set Up Your System
• Family Settings (Xbox Live)
• Connectivity Video
• Join Xbox Live

Merge an Offline Gamer Profile with an Xbox Live Gamer Card

If you've created an offline profile on your console and want to keep it, and you've also created a profile at Xbox.com, you essentially have two separate profiles, one on your console and one on Xbox Live. To get your offline profile online with the same gamertag, and with all your achievements intact, you have to get rid of your placeholder Xbox Live profile and supplant it with your offline profile.

The tools for doing this are all on your Xbox 360™ console; you just have to do some shuffling around to make it work.

1. From either the Xbox Dashboard or the Xbox Guide, call up your gamer profile and select Edit Gamer Profile. Let's say your gamertag (profile name) in both cases is Trixie360.
2. Select Profile Name.
3. Enter a new gamer profile name, say, Trixie361. (Alternatively, you could move your profile as is, without changing its name, to an Xbox 360 Memory Unit for safe keeping. See How to Use Your Xbox 360 Memory Unit for details about moving or deleting an item from your memory unit.)
4. Sign out (X) of the Xbox Dashboard.
5. Go to the Xbox Live area and select the Xbox Live banner, then select Join Xbox Live and follow the on-screen instructions.
6. At the gamertag screen, enter your gamertag, Trixie360. When you see the Gamertag In Use screen, select Recover Gamertag and follow the on-screen instructions. Be sure to keep your Microsoft Passport Network account password and e-mail address handy, and make sure you create a free Xbox Live Silver Membership, since you will probably not keep or use this membership after this procedure.
7. Once you've recovered your online Xbox.com profile for Trixie360 to your console, repeat steps one and two above to change the name of this gamertag to something other than Trixie360, say, Trixie362. (From Edit Gamer Profile, select Gamertag.)

   Note

   You must redeem Microsoft Points to change a gamertag linked to an Xbox Live membership. If you have no Points you'll have the option to purchase them. For more information, see Account Management FAQ: Microsoft Points.

   
   
   At this stage you'll have two profiles, neither of which is named for your original gamertag. Trixie360 is now available.
8. Sign out (X) of the Xbox Dashboard.
9. Select Sign In, then select your original (but renamed) profile, Trixie361.
10. Quick like a mouse, before another gamer grabs your now-free gamertag, repeat steps one and two to change the name of Trixie361—with which all your games and achievements are now associated—back to your original gamertag, Trixie360. (If you moved Trixie360 to a memory unit in step three, this would be the time to move it back to your Xbox 360 console, no additional name changing required.)
11. Repeat step five to join Xbox Live using your original gamertag. You will need to provide or create an alternate Passport Network account during signup, as your original account will remain linked to Trixie362.
12. Now you can delete Trixie362 from your console. See How to Use Your Xbox 360 Memory Unit for details about moving or deleting an item from your memory unit.