Up until now if you bought games and downloadable content for your Xbox 360, only for it to go through the dreaded red ring of death, you could no longer play them on your new console (blame evil DRM for that wonder!) But Microsoft has now released a tool for users to transfer content between consoles.

The new release should also make it easy for users to take content to upgraded consoles. The license transfer tool does pretty much what it says on the tin, it allows you to transfer the licenses of all your old content from your previous console to the new one. The process is in two stages which has to be carried out via the Xbox website.

Up until now, the main complaint about downloadd games were that should your console die or you buy a new one, any downloaded content would only work while connected to the Live network. If that condition wasn't satisified then users could only play trial versions of the game, much to the chargrin of users.

But the new the Content License Transfer Tool will allow users to re-download and fully unlock all their bought content, including Xbox Live Arcade games and add-on DLC. (but not movies, d'oh!)

However, according to the FAQs on the site, the tool can only be used once a year, so we shall now call it the Santa Clause.

To get hold of the  tool, you need to visit the Xbox website here.