The primary reason for most gamers to pay for Xbox Live Gold Membership is to play online against friends across the globe. There is however a great benefits that Xbox Live members get that many aren’t taking advantage of. Each month, Microsoft discount games and add-ons, but they also give away games for free. Most of us aren’t diligent enough to fire up our Xbox each day and check what’s new, fortunately there’s an automated way to make sure you never miss a free download.
This month racing game The Crew is free for Gold Members, while the game was released at the end of 2014, if you’re a racing fan and never got around to this one, you now have something to add to you’re already full motorsport weekend of Supercars in Darwin, F1 in Baku and the 24 hours Le Mans race.
Instructions
To setup the automatic reminders, we’ll use a service called IFTTT (If this, then that). If you’re not already using the service, you should be, its the service that combines IoT devices to enhance our lives, and its easy enough to use for anyone.
- Signup or log into an IFTTT account.
- Visit the Xbox Recipies page.
- Select your Recipe
- Configure the alert channel (mobile device, email account etc).
With your IFTTT setup, you’ll never have to think about this again, every month, you’ll receive an email or push notification to your phone. Personally I created created a custom recipe that turns on one of my connected light bulbs and changes the colour to ‘Xbox Green’ to let me know there’s a new free game waiting for download.
