If you want to buy a gift for someone entrenched in the Windows ecosystem, Microsoft has outlined the perfect package deal for you. The Work and Play bundle, as it’s appropriately named, consists of a one-year subscription to Xbox Live Gold, Assure support, Office 365, Skype Wi-Fi, and a year’s worth of unlimited worldwide Skype calls. Additionally, the bundle ships with a $60 Microsoft Store gift card, which you can use to buy movies, TV shows, music, and games.
Of course, it’s more likely that you would buy the $149 bundle and divvy up the gifts as needed. Although I’m not sure who would get excited about an Assure support plan or a premium Skype plan, the bundle claims to save over $360 when compared to purchasing each service individually. As a result, it might be worth it for the Xbox Live, Office 365, and Microsoft Store cards alone.
On its website listing, the Work and Play bundle gives users the option to either get it sent as a physical package to a mailing address or, perhaps more conveniently, download it directly. It’s a good deal if you were looking into subscribing to any of these services individually, especially considering Office 365 on its own costs $100 a year. Shell out $50 more and you can get a whole assortment of goodies.
If you’re unclear on the functionality of any of these products, I’ll quickly explain. Office 365 Home gives you a year’s access to Microsoft’s productivity suite including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. These can all be accessed on up to five PCs or Macs and up to five tablets. Additionally, you’ll get a full terabyte of OneDrive cloud storage during that same period, also for up to five users.
Xbox Live Gold might be a useful gift for any gamers in the family. For a year, Xbox 360/Xbox One owners can access online multiplayer, free games, discounted games, and more with this subscription.
Skype Wi-Fi is an interesting concept as well. With it, you can access “millions” of Wi-Fi signals without having to enter any passwords or pay any fees. Simply put, it cuts out the complications of accessing the Internet at airports, hotels, and other public Wi-Fi hubs. Skype Unlimited World Calling, on the other hand, lets you make calls to mobile phones in 8 countries and landlines in 63 countries with the option to make the calls from an assortment of different devices.
Lastly, the Assure support plan is essentially a help desk for Windows. You can contact Microsoft by phone, in-store, or online and they’ll answer any tech support questions you might have for an entire year.
The Work and Play bundle is available for purchase now through the Microsoft Store.
