Playing Video Games on Your Network

Even better than playing alone or with one other pal, many video game consoles let you connect them to your shiny new home network so you can play against the world by joining a MMORPG (which stands for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game). Rather than a few people in your house huddled around the TV, you get to join millions of other players around the globe in their gaming efforts.

Connecting your Xbox or PlayStation to your network isn't hard, but requires a little additional hardware, a dab of configuration, and the time to game.

The Microsoft Xbox

Microsoft's Xbox makes networking easy since it sports an Ethernet jack on its backside and has a number of network-enabled titles to its credit. Microsoft gives you two ways to connect your Xbox to your network: wired (you connect your Xbox to your router with an Ethernet cable) or wireless (you add a wireless network adapter (Section 1.1) to your Xbox). Once you decide whether you want your Xbox tied (wired) or untied (wireless) you need do little configuring, as explained in the next few pages.

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