I'm going to buy an Xbox360 soon. But my place here doesnt have the phone line. Some more I rarely play online games. My last online game was Diablo 1 and that was like, 9-10 years ago on a dial-up.

Frankly, I want to get the original, unmodded Xbox360 and buy original games BUT seeing that some machines get bricked or spoilt after updating their consoles, so what give? This really scares me a lot and made me think twice about getting one.

Main question: Is it CRUCIAL to get to Live if I wanna get Xbox360? Can i use the machine without getting to Live at all? I prefer if playing with my housemates and I dont want to spend some money to play online. I prefer going offline.

Thanks for clearing my doubt.