It's been a good couple of days for owners of the Xbox Series X/S: Microsoft recently started rolling out its April dashboard update, armed with plenty of new tweaks and features for the discerning gamer, while the Xbox Insider program has been teasing yet more to come. These system updates have historically fixed a horde of bugs and introduced new functionality to the consoles and this month seems no different, featuring one key feature that should appeal to many users.
Directly addressing an issue that has haunted the system for a while, this newest update will allow users to dodge throttled download speeds caused by having games running in the background, ready to Quick Resume. Previously, the system would warn players that a game was running in the background and slowing down any downloads, but the only recourse available to them was to close out the game entirely or suffer through sluggish downloads. Now, though, it appears Microsoft has offered a valuable solution.
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With the new update, players can now suspend their active game to free up bandwidth and get those downloads out of the way before jumping right back in with Quick Resume. The whole process is a lot cleaner and more straightforward than quitting out of the game or app entirely and then having to load everything back up again, which is sure to put a smile on the faces of frustrated and time-light gamers everywhere.
This is perhaps doubly important considering the huge rise to prominence of Microsoft's own Xbox Game Pass, its gaming subscription service that arguably hinges on being able to quickly check out new games and see if they're a good fit. Since many of these titles have file sizes in excess of 50GB, being able to quickly boost the system's download speed will definitely help bring more users onboard and keep any frustrations as far away as possible.
Of course, much of this will be old news to members of the Xbox Insider program, who had the privilege of experimenting with some of these features a month ago. The program offers members a special preview of some of the updates that are later rolled out to consoles, and this month's Insider update includes even more Quick Resume upgrades, such as a new group to see all games with a current Quick Resume save and an option to check which games support the feature in the first place.
It certainly appears as though the devs at Microsoft are quietly working away behind the scenes to streamline and improve the console experience for everyone, and consumers can expect to see plenty more small but handy updates in the future. Between a brand new console, the success of Xbox Game Pass, and the recently-announced expansion of Xbox Cloud Gaming, it would seem the company has its eyes very much on the proverbial prize going forward.
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Source: Xbox