New to XBox - aibu to be as confused as hell! Advice please.

[Whatjusthappenedthere]

DS is getting his first Xbox on Friday for his birthday. Any advice please to ensure he’s ready to play as quickly as possible.
What is a Gold subscription ? What is a Live subscription ? What is a game pass? What does he do with the XBox gift cards he will be getting from family members for Christmas?
What do I need to do to ensure he can play on line with his friends ?
Up until now he’s just selected discs and put them in a rather old play station that used to belong to my DH but clearly things have moved on.
Can any one give me a beginnners guide to setting him up ready to play after school on his Birthday, he has an X box mad friend coming for the weekend and I’m hoping he is ready to game straight away. Good grief, I’m so confused.

You need to set up an x box live account to play online. The gold subscription let's you play all the games online. Games passes are usually specific to a particular game. The vouchers will be money he can spend on Xbox live, either to buy games or buy add ons to other games. They have a code on them you type into the Xbox to redeem. You also usually have to install the games and download any updates, so I suggest you get cracking on with setting it up the day before hand if you want him up and running straight away!!

Get it setup a few days before including installing the games as many of them require updates to be downloaded which can take hours. I remember when we first got one and on our Internet the first 18 hours was downloading updates

First thing to do is turn it on now, there'll be a million updates that'll probably take several hours before he can play. The set up is easy, it'll basically tell you what to do. You'll probably want to go into settings and set up age restrictions etc, again very easy to do. And yes he'll need a live account to play online and a headset. Games take a while to install so you might want to install any he's getting prior to his birthday. The gift cards can be used to purchase games or in game content, you just enter the codes on them. You'll need an email to set up an account. Am sure his friend will help him get started if you're struggling!

Xbox Live Silver is free and allows you to play games online but not join chats with friends. Xbox Live Gold is about £5 or so per month (cheaper the longer you subscribe to) and allows you to play games online, chat with friends and also lets you get selected free games every month and discounts on other games. Some games require Gold to play (like COD) so check the games when you buy.

Xbox game pass is essentially a game "streaming" service like Netflix which let's you play selected (quite good) games for free, for about £8 per month.

To redeem gift vouchers, go to the Xbox Live Store and select "redeem code".

If you have a hotmail account then you can use that to set it up... handy in case they decide to go mad on your bank card. I have it set up that it needs the password everytimeverytime he has to play... obviously when he is older it will be different.
Gold means he can chat to his friends on his headset etc. I think you get a free game every month too with it. Look on Amazon for the gold as it's much cheaper than on Xbox. Go for the year if you can again much cheaper. Game pass is access to games online you can play as much as you want.

Spend some time looking at and setting up the parent controls BEFORE he starts playing and progressing in games. You need an adult profile and a separate sub profile for the child. With the child profile, it allows you to set up time limits and control access. All from your phone.

We messed up and did not do this and have had to find other workarounds instead.

Thanks. Replies are great but It still feels so alien.
I have a gold subscription ready to go. Is it worth buying a 12 month game pass as well ? ( we are not a super wealthy family but I’m willing to give him a good start if it’s needed) . As I said before we are starting from scratch so he only has the game it comes with so far.

He def needs a live subscription to play online with his friends. He also needs a headset with mic if there isn’t one included in the package
He can use the Xbox gift cards to either purchase downloaded games or in-game content (like v-bucks and fifa points)
Get it plugged in and set profiles up before the day as the downloads and updates take bloody hours.

Maybe see what games his friends play before forking out for the annual game pass. If they all just play fortnite it’s not necessary

If your DS is anything like mine, and the majority of his friends, he will want to play Fortnite. This is free but needs downloading, which can take a few hours. Set it up first, don't put your credit card details in, the gift cards have a number that he would add for credit. As already mentioned this will buy him games, or in Fortnite it will buy V bucks ( which apparently are very important!) He will need a Live account to play with friends and a headset with microphone to chat. I wouldn't buy anything else extra yet as it may not be needed. Good luck! You'll need it once he gets into it, and you struggle to get him off it!!

Just to answer the game pass: it gives you access to 100s of games that you can download and play. (It's included in the subscription) they have a 6 month offer on gamepass at the moment.