Xbox's director of project management Jason Ronald has been taking to social media over the past couple of days, responding to feedback from Digital Foundry's John Linneman and other fans about how game updates work on Xbox.
The conversation was prompted by Linneman asking if anyone had found a way to bypass updates on Xbox games, or at least ensure that everything was up to date ahead of time, rather than just the most recently played titles.
Jason Ronald was dropped into the conversation, where he explained that the team tries to "balance keeping the games you are most likely to play up to date while also respecting a player's bandwidth."
For those with large game libraries though, it was pondered whether an "always update all games" feature could be added in the future, to which Ronald acknowledged it had been discussed, and would be looked into again.
There's a bit of frustration surrounding the update process for games on Xbox right now, then, but the idea of "respecting bandwidth" makes sense, and it would be good to see an "always update all games" option as an alternative.
At the very least, it's good to see Ronald engaging with the community on social media to help rectify these issues.
How do you feel about how game updates work on Xbox? Let us know down in the comments below.
Comments 14
Doesn't always keep recent games up to date either. I've only played Halo MCC lately and I still had to manually update to season 7.
And how about having an option that allows players to select a time set that is for unlimited updating. That would "respect" a player's bandwith when they'd be awake and using it, but between 00:00 and 17:00, I'm not using my internet most days.
The option to be able play a game not updated, but only offline is a must-have, in my opinion.
Playstation does it since an eternity, it should be a given.
How frustrating it is, when you finally get the time to play a little hour of a game yoy haven't played for a long time, only to see that you cannot play it right now, cause IT HAS to update first.
No, it has not to. Just block the online features, and let me play right now. I'll update it later in the evening.
Just my two cents.
@Bobobiwan You do have the workaround of shutting the internet off on the Xbox. But it really should be a lot easier.
They've really stepped back on the UI aspect. It still blows me away how with the backwards compatible 360 games you can still more easily navigate menus and everything.
This is once again one of those situations where Microsoft things they know what is better for the consumer. I have 250+ games installed on my Series X. Super annoying having to contend with everything needing updated when I wanna play.
Meanwhile my PC is keeping my 300+ steam games and all the other games across all launchers updated correctly.
maybe make developers finish making a game before they release it would be a good place to start
2 things PlayStation does better IMO is that if you press the options button you can manually “check for update”. You can also check update history which will often (but not always) show you patch notes for previous updates/patches. Saying that, the worst thing about PS updates is after downloading it goes into a “copying” phase which seems to take forever 🙄
Totally agree with good to see "Ronald engaging with the community on social media to help rectify these issues."
I'm sure they'll look into this and do whatever is necessary
I honestly thought it did always update all games all the time! I also thought it just didn't work very well.... Not neither does switch. And PS5 only fits 5 games at a time....
@Nightcrawler71 the copying phase is a thing of nightmares. I remember a few years back playing Destiny 2 the copying for that was an eternity.
The explanation seems strange to me. Respecting bandwidth for a device like a console? Are volume contracts still so much a thing on landlines? Anyway, it seems so easy to solve, by providing options. Almost seems natural. Wonder why they already discussed it internally and then decided that wouldn't be a good thing. Oo
@The_New_Butler Yeah, that's been a thing since x1x and it drives me crazy. I never knew they intended that. I thought auto updates must just be broken.
Then again, with xsx booting so fast I've been using power saver most of the time anyway. Personally I'd love of power saver included a once a day check for updates... Just turn on and off on a timer to check and do downloads. It's frustrating that by leaving it off it goes to do updates any time you turn it on, and if Windows can do the "hibernate" mode update checks, on timers, so can Xbox. It's not actually off, it's just not suspsuspending load state and idles most components. If the bt controller can wake it, so can timers.
@lokozar Comcast, the biggest ISP in the US enforces 1tb monthly caps.... You can exceed the cap at the cost of $50 per 10gb up to $250/mo in charges. Or (from the fine print) pay $65/mo fixed price free in top of normal price for true unlimited.... Unless you use an "unreasonable" amount, which is unspecified, at which point they may kill the account.
1tb/mo. On a 4k console.... Yeah, that doesn't end pretty.
And that's most of the US....
I happen to have Verizon who was an E3 elite tier sponsor with their own stage show, and they co-advertised with Xbox on the launch of x1x..... It's surreal, I remember when they used to suddenly and silently kill accounts for playing online games....
@NEStalgia
Wow, ok. Guess I am lucky that this ***** is pretty much gone, where I live. Unless we’re talking mobile phone, stationary 5G, or some fancy satellite stuff.
@lokozar Yeah, weirder still, Verizon has said they intend to stop landline rollout entirely and go with only 5g as the only internet because it's cheaper to roll out and "young people don't want to be tethered to land lines anymore, they lice mobile lives".... So when stationary 5g becomes the only internet, I guess Nintendo just takes over all of gaming and Sony, MS, Valve and Epic just abandon ship?
I'd love this feature. The "always update" is just broken for me right now. I play CoD with my friends every weekend and often it doesn't auto update. It was also frustrating this weekend a new playgroup wanted to play some Rocket League, and we were waiting on me to update since my system hadn't updated the game since I ran it last. I have slower DSL (25mbps) but its an unlimited connection and I'd rather have my games updated than wait.
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