Is an Xbox required for Windows phone 7?

I want to buy a Windows 7 phone, but I was wondering if you need to have an Xbox for the Xbox live on the phone. Can anyone help me?|||No.





XBox Live is merely a central system for managing an account which storing and unlocking achievements and other information. If you have an XBox (and setup XBox Live) when you login and play a game, it can 'remember' certain information (typically accomplishments) which might give you different options when playing the game.





For example, you login to XBox Live on your computer and play say Halo. You kill some big bad guy and it gives you an achievement that unlocks some secret base you can get into. Weeks later, you go to your friends place and play Halo on his XBox (logged in to XBox Live). It will 'remember' your achievement and give you access to that secret base.





XBox Live for Windows Phone 7 is the same thing. If you play a game on your Windows Phone device and do something it will forward your achievement to XBox Live. Later, that achievement might allow you to do something. For example, if you play The Harvest, and reach a certain point, it allows you to start with different suits of armor. Technically, if you had two phones (or logged in on someone else's phone) it would know about your achievements on the other phone.





Achievements also give points which you can use for various things within other games. Some games might share achievements.