Xbox Has A Killer Download Feature That We Hope Becomes The Norm

We have had an Xbox Series X since launch, but we do not plan to do a formal review since most other outlets have already done that in brilliant words. However, what we will do is talk about our favourite feature on the Series X so far.

If you think it’s Ray Tracing, high resolution or smooth frame-rates, then you are wrong. Whilst we love just how amazing the games look on this powerhouse of a machine, what we were impressed by the most was the download feature.

We don’t mean the fact that you can download games to your console, as you can do that on pretty much anything, but what is brilliant is that you can download games that you don’t even own. How radical is that?

Last Monday, we had preordered Cold War for the Xbox Series X, and as you know, the recent Call of Duty games have been notorious for how much space they need. Without this feature, we would have had to wait for the game to release on Friday before letting it download upwards of 100GB. It would dash any plans we had of playing on launch day.

Thankfully, due to this smart feature, we were able to pre-load the game digitally without having to buy a soft copy of it. All we had to do was log in to our Xbox app on our smartphone, find the game and click download.

Our download was done by Thursday, but we were still not convinced that it would be all we’d need to do. We had a feeling that similar to Modern Warfare, there would be some arbitrary Singleplayer or Multiplayer packs we would have to download. Maybe we’d still have to install the disc data? Another possibility was that it would not work at all, and we’d end up redownloading anyways.

So when our disc finally arrived on Friday, we crossed our fingers and bit our lips as we pushed the disc inside. We pressed the play button, waiting for the inevitable extra downloads… But it launched without hesitation!

We were able to start playing right away and did not have to download a single file on top. Nostalgic memories of the golden days rushed back, hearkening to a generation where all that was needed to play the game was the disc and the console, without needing a single day one patch or install.

We really don’t see discs going away anytime soon, and features like this can help make them as convenient as they once were. As games are only getting bigger, I can see this feature becoming a huge help with physical discs, allowing everyone to play their games right away.

With highly anticipated games like Cyberpunk2077 and more coming out soon, this feature makes even more sense, as those with physical editions of the games will be able to download the required files, ready for release.

We really hope that Sony brings the feature to the Playstation 5 in one form or another, as it would really make life easier for those who like owning physical media, especially those who prefer to get Collector’s Editions of their anticipated games. Now just to clarify, this feature should be available on Xbox One as well, but it feels much more refined on the Series X with how much quicker it is to download stuff.