The Xbox "Invite to Game" Mystery

This was a weird one. I had my Xbox for a few months and had played a few games against other folks on Live. However, these were all anonymous challenges - Madden 07, PGR, etc. And yes, I always got my ass kicked.

Then my father-in-law bought an XBox and I figured we could then play one on one. My son would be very excited to play Grandpa in Uno.

We set up a time and then as we saw we were both online I brought up his gamertag and went to select "Invite To Game." It was grayed out. We both double-checked that we had Live Gold subscriptions and after a few attempts we gave up trying to play each other. Bummer!

This didn't make sense - isn't Xbox the "connected community" platform? I took advantage of my Microsoft status to ask some serious XBoxers at work about this. They all said that they played anonymous challenges so I received some suggestions but nothing definitive.

In Digital Dad style I invested some time a few nights ago (after the kids went to sleep) to figure this out. Here's what I came up with.

• You need to have an XBox Live Gold subscription (not just Silver).
• You need to be online (doh!) .
• You need to have the game running that want to play against someone. You can't "Invite To Game" if there is no game actively running on your console. Kind of makes sense.
• Now, you need to start a XBox Live game session in that game, like a "custom match" as opposed to a random Live game session.
• Hit your silver XBox button on your controller to bring up your friends list. Click on a friend and "Invite To Game" should be working just fine!

I did a few different searches on the web and couldn't find anything this definitive, so hopefully some other Dad will find this as they unbox their Xbox this holiday. Once you figure it out it makes sense, but the "fun" is in the figuring, right? Right?

Comments

[abba-daddy]

I wish I could play with my dad Xbox but -

1. He lives in Israel - 7 hours difference
2. He is technically challenged - even though he really improved
3. I will just enjoy kicking his ass too much

[Russell Fillingham]

Thanks for that me & a mate have just been struggling & ended up using voice link to get poised over a quickmatch to try to get online together! which also works but the "Invite to game" isn't very intuitive - also if it's only available in-game why is it visible at all in the dahboard view?

[World of Warcraft Account]

I have also faced the same problem while playing Xbox "Invite to Game" Mystery. The option was grayed out and I was also wondering what the solution can be.

[R4 carte ds]

MS is lagging behind Nintendo, Microsoft is under pression.

[Jony Ford]

Xbox the connected community platform.people took advantage of the Microsoft status to ask some serious XBoxers at work about this. They all said that they played anonymous challenges so people received some suggestions but nothing definitive.

WoW Accounts

[James Fort]

Hit your silver XBox button on your controller to bring up your friends list. Click on a friend and Invite To Game should be working just fine.

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