The release of the Xbox One is almost upon us. In a matter of a few weeks, gamers from across the globe will be battling each other online in Battlefield 4, or sailing the seas in Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag–all from the comfort of their living rooms. They will be saying phrases like “Xbox, go home,” and “Watch Netflix” with the shiny new Kinect 2.0.
While this will definitely be an exciting time, there is just one problem that we will all have to deal with on launch day.
Day one required patches.
Merely a day after a senior marketing member said that the Xbox One will have a better experience than the PlayStation 4, Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox One will pretty much be a $500 paperweight until you download the day one patch. Director of Product Management, Albert Penello, told Engadget that the Xbox One won’t even play disc-based games without the owner downloading the patch immediately.
“A lot of the apps come with the day one update because they wouldn’t have even been done. You’re gonna need to take this update. It’s not gonna be really an optional thing. Functionally, you will be able to do very little without taking the day one update.”
Unfortunately, this seems to be the norm for console releases. The PS4 will need a 300 MB day one patch to activate its features. The Wii U needed an even bigger 1 GB update when it released at the end of last year.
Some were hoping that the arrival of the “next-gen” would signal the end of day one patches. Alas, it seems the days of a company releasing a product that doesn’t require the user to download an immediate update are long gone.
