It’s been reported that the length of time it takes for game to be installed on the Xbox One takes a bit more of a bite of your day than what you might otherwise expect, but head of Xbox, Phil Spencer, has made it clear that improving the console’s install times ranks quite high on his priority list.
In speaking with IGN during one of its recent podcasts, when compared to the almost-instant install times of the PlayStation 4, Spencer was asked about what he has planned for reducing the install time on the Xbox One, which he has mentioned before that he wants to improve upon.
He explained that–in some cases–the reason why the console’s install times are much slower than that of the PlayStation 4 is because of always-online requirement of the console having been dropped following consumer feedback. He admitted that having Xbox Ones in an offline-only state meant that the process of installing games wasn’t as smooth as it could have been.
” The change to having to deal with an offline-only state meant that all the install code-flows weren’t as perfect as they could be, ” Spencer told IGN.
As a test, Spencer asked for his team to install third-party games on both the Xbox One and the PlayStation 4, to see what kind of a difference they were dealing with in terms of install times. While some of the Xbox One’s install times were in fact faster than the PlayStation 4’s in certain cases, in other cases the console fared “ significantly worse. ”
” Are there systemtic reasons for that? ” Spencer questioned. “ Our drive’s obviously the same speed, moving stuff into memory takes the same amount of time; hard drive speed’s basically the same, so what’s going on?” he said. “I’m capturing the data. I want to be state-of-the-art in install times so people can start playing games as soon as possible. It’s high on my priority list.
“ I’m not defending it at all, because I do think install times should be faster, ” he added. “ There isn’t one thing to say why are we two seconds slower on this game or frankly why are we two seconds faster on a different game, ” Spencer continued. “ The issues are a little bit in the weeds. It’s really our developer pipeline and our ingestion system where we have to do the most work. ”
When specifically asked when Xbox Ones could expect an update to reduce the consoles install times, Spencer reiterated that reducing the install times is on the top of his list, but beyond that he didn’t give any specifics as to when Xbox One users will be benefiting from such a thing. So, whilst it’s not known when an update will arrive, at least it’s now known that it is being worked on.
You can listen to / watch IGN’s podcast interview with Phil Spencer via the source link below.
[ IGN ]
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