Get a year of Xbox Live Gold for buying an Office 365 membership

We’re not sure how these two things really fit together from a productivity standpoint, but Microsoft has announced a new promotion for anyone activating a copy of Office 365 between yesterday, July 18th, and September 28th of this year.

The promotion is likely meant to keep people in the Xbox ecosystem as the Xbox One comes out, and if you’re a student buying a new copy of Office for school come September, saving the $60 it would otherwise cost for the membership. A year-long subscription only costs $100 if paid upfront ($10 per month if you want don’t want to pay all at once), so for some, it might be like paying $40 for Office if you plan on buying an Xbox Live Gold membership anyway.

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Whether the marketing tactic is sound is another story. Sure, “buy one subscription service for a year, get another free” isn’t a bad slogan or anything, but making it something as productivity-draining as video games can’t be too healthy. We suppose the redemption code might be able to be sold or something. Right.

With Microsoft’s new Games with Gold promotion, the membership will have more value than ever, though in its early days, we’re not sure that value is really measurable.

Regardless, we’re not ones to pass up offers for free stuff, and since we’re already going to grab a copy of Office 365, we may as well extend our Xbox Live Gold subscription while we’re at it. At this point, it doesn’t look like it’ll be limited to new users, so if by chance you’re already paid up through next year some time, this promotion should just extend that time for a year, meaning you’ll have virtually endless gaming to look forward to.

Until, you know, you have to renew.