We already know that we can pre-install games ahead of time on Xbox, but what about updates? Well, Microsoft is rolling out a new feature for certain Xbox Insiders this week that will allow "pre-downloads" for certain game updates.
Team Xbox describes this as a feature where you can install these updates before they're actually scheduled to be released, meaning when they officially arrive on the platform, you can start playing the game(s) straight away.
"Games that enable support for update pre-download will allow updates to be downloaded days before they are scheduled to release, so you can jump in and start playing right when the update goes live! Be on the lookout for the for first updates to start taking advantage of this new option by checking My games & apps > Manage > Updates."
There's no word yet on how many games will take advantage of this feature, and to be honest we don't think it'll be that many - but we do at least know that the Sea Of Thieves Insider program is the first to be getting support for it.
Even if Xbox just keeps this restricted to first-party titles, it could come in really useful for games such as Starfield where big updates are fairly common and players are eager to get stuck in as quickly as possible. We'll see how it goes!
As mentioned, this feature is restricted to certain Xbox Insiders, and will extend to everyone at some point in the future.
Comments 8
Call of Duty has done this on PlayStation for a while now so I would expect that to be another one to add to the list.
With all these pre-downloads and stuff they should just let you play it "early". If I'm pre-downloading a game I've bought don't make me wait.
Hopefully it works better than the pre install for gamepass releases. That seems to trip me up more than half of the time.
I don't really understand the 'pre-install' of Game Pass games. It's like 300megabytes, and once the game is out you still have to wait for the whole thing to download. If the game is massive and your internet is quite slow (like mine) then you're often waiting 24hrs from release to play.
If it's downloadable, then it's ready to use immediately.
@LaurenceJ1987
Only some devs/publishers use that 300MB template nonsense, you must have just been unlucky. The Hogwarts pre-install was the full 80GB game ready to play on release hour 1.
@TheGiraffe I must have been. I had a look for Senua's Saga and it's the same. Pointless unless I can pre-install the whole game.
@Sifi Interesting. I'll bear that in mind, thanks. The full game is now showing to pre-install on the console, so I've done that.
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