QUOTE(King Coin @ Jul 1 2012, 04:22 AM)

You need to buy a 1600 MS point card at a store, or use a credit card on your xbox to get it. Either way, it will be $20. You will need to connect your xbox to the internet to get it. You do not need to get a 'Gold Membership' which is the paid account.
The King speaks the truth; you can get two kinds of membership for Xbox Live; Gold Membership, which you pay for, which allows you to play games against people online, and Silver Membership, where you cannot play games online but you can buy and download games and browse the internet from your Xbox. You can buy downloadable content from the Xbox Live Marketplace by purchasing Microsoft Points as a sort of online store credit sort of thing (not sure why Microsoft doesn't just cut out the middle man and let you buy directly with your credit card, but you'd have to ask Bill Gates for the answer to that question). Once you've bought your Microsoft Points, you can then spend them on DLC and even entire games at will.