Xbox One day one update will take '15 to 20 minutes' to install

When November 22nd hits, many of you will be setting up your brand new Xbox One console. But, long gone are the days of the N64 Christmas Kid. You'll need to save 15-20 minutes to set up the console.

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When November 22nd hits, many of you will be setting up your brand new Xbox One console. But, long gone are the days of the N64 Christmas Kid. You won't be able to simply unwrap the box and get to playing. No, you'll want to grab a sandwich and download and install a mandatory day one update.

According to Marc Whitten, the download will take "between 15 and 20 minutes for most users." That's a lot better than what Wii U owners had to endure.

"That's frankly just a difference in manufacturing schedules versus software schedules," Whitten told IGN. "We just wanted to be clear that that hasn't changed, that you have to go online to get the software update for day one, then you wouldn't have to be connected after that."

And of course, this will not be the end of updates for Xbox One. Whitten promises that "like we have done with Xbox 360, we will continue to learn from what customers want and love to iterate on the best dashboard experience." We have to admit, however, that we're quite fond of what Microsoft has in store for Xbox One.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

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  • reply
    October 1, 2013 2:45 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Xbox One day one update will take '15 to 20 minutes' to install.

    When November 22nd hits, many of you will be setting up your brand new Xbox One console. But, long gone are the days of the N64 Christmas Kid. You'll need to save 15-20 minutes to set up the console.

    • reply
      October 1, 2013 2:54 PM

      If I was 14 this would piss me off, at 32 I don't really care. I'll go let the dog out or something.

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      October 1, 2013 3:02 PM

      What a cop-out. I was under the impression that the "day one update" would be an authentication key-exchange handshake, and a relatively small update for something analogous to HDDVD revocation lists. Nope; it's a full-on massive update of who-knows-how-many-gigabytes. What's the assumed bandwidth for "15 to 20 minutes"? On my 10 megabit down connection, 15 minutes would be 900 MB, which could be smaller than what this update is.

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        October 1, 2013 3:05 PM

        Well most 360 updates are like a few MB aside from the annual updates right? I'd imagine it's to keep people from using the console before release or something.

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          October 1, 2013 3:20 PM

          The article says it's because the software development is running later than the hardware manufacturing. That seems ok to me. Keep working on it as long as you can.

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            October 1, 2013 3:30 PM

            I see it as laziness. They basically want to force all XBox One buyers into downloading the newest firmware, even if it's bad (lookin' at you, 360 Metro Dashboard).

            They apparently wanted to release to market with a firmware version that wasn't fully featured, that was bootstrapped enough to request a download and login to Live, but didn't want it to have enough functionality to play a game. That crippling of the firmware was sort of expected, because they said it wouldn't run until it connected for the first download... but they didn't say that the first download would be a full honking firmware update.

            An update of "a few megabytes" would've taken my connection under 30 seconds, not 15 minutes minimum.

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              October 1, 2013 3:33 PM

              [deleted]

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                October 1, 2013 3:36 PM

                It better not take 15 minutes for an XBox One to extract and install a 1 GB firmware update package. That's making PS3 firmware updates look fast (10 minutes after download, from initial extraction to final bootup into the new firmware version).

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              October 1, 2013 3:34 PM

              ...and yes, I do make a big deal out of firmware versions, and having the ability to hang back on a known good firmware version, because there's an alarming trend of hardware companies not fixing showstopper bugs in their firmware for months on end.

              Let's just say that I had to put out a Do Not Install order on a specific server hardware vendor's firmware for an entire year, because it would cause it to become unusable in a config that was fully tested with that same vendor. That didn't get fixed until a year later, and is still a bit broken.

              We're in the same condition with iOS 7 right now, where it still has a laundry list of problems, but Apple has stopped signing 6.1.3 and 6.1.4, so users can't roll back without jailbreaking. That's not a good firmware policy; that's a customer service attitude problem masquerading as "confidence in our product".

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                October 1, 2013 5:12 PM

                Except there is no "known good firmware version" in this case. This is the first version of a dashboard nobody has used yet, so just get the damn latest version, bro.

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              October 1, 2013 3:54 PM

              how is it lazy? If the hardware needs to be built and stocked months before it goes on sale then what do you propose they do on the software side? It's a basic fact of producing hardware vs software. One can be delivered much more easily, and that's an advantage, so why would you ignore that advantage? These systems are immensely complex, they're going to ship with bugs or feature holes. But in the months since the hardware was locked some of those bugs could be fixed and the holes could be filled. But you don't want that because... nothing. It's so absurd to call this crippled, as if there is some magical way that it could've shipped in a bug free state given enough time. And that's ignoring the constantly evolving services that are now part of these boxes that will always need updates for features and fixes.

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              October 1, 2013 4:52 PM

              Oh I assure you it's not lazyness, they are busting their fucking asses I am sure. You think they want to be coming in that hot? Fuck no. It means they are scrambling.

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              October 1, 2013 7:17 PM

              I honestly don't understand this. How do you know it's going to be better or worse than the firmware that comes installed? No one will already have that firmware because no one has the system yet (aside from a very select few testers).

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              October 1, 2013 7:19 PM

              [deleted]

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              October 1, 2013 7:46 PM

              Archville post, move along.

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              October 2, 2013 8:29 AM

              That crippling of the firmware was sort of expected what

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              October 2, 2013 8:42 AM

              How on earth is

              a) Wanting the best possible software for new customers (more time means better software, as simple as that)
              b) Not wanting to fragment your software base right out of the gates (there is quite a price to pay in many regards if you need to publish stuff for a device that is running different versions of software depending on the user)

              lazy? It just makes sense.

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              October 2, 2013 9:16 AM

              Stop feeding the troll, people. Since what he's saying obviously makes zero sense, he's either a troll or an idiot (though I'm betting on both).

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        October 1, 2013 5:17 PM

        I'd rather them keep working on the software right up to release personally; sounds like it needs lots of optimization.

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      October 1, 2013 3:16 PM

      At least with the lackluster sales the servers shouldn't get hammered on launch day. :D

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      October 1, 2013 3:39 PM

      The One needs to go back into the Oven for another year..

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        October 2, 2013 8:51 AM

        And what exactly are the criteria you're using to make that judgement?

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      October 1, 2013 3:48 PM

      OMG 15 PATCH!!!


      /wrists

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      October 1, 2013 3:48 PM

      Oh my god. How will I go on?

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      October 1, 2013 3:50 PM

      WiiU had a huge day 1 patch that sure as heck took a lot longer than 20 minutes to install....

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      October 1, 2013 4:04 PM

      Still faster than every single PS3 update ever.

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        October 1, 2013 4:44 PM

        I think I unconsciously avoid playing my PS3 precisely for that reason. Seems like there's an update/patch every other friggin day.

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      October 1, 2013 4:06 PM

      15-20 minutes or actually 3hrs since every other new owner will be trying to get the same patch.

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        October 1, 2013 4:58 PM

        how many people are downloading GTA Online right now and finding XBL to be a bottleneck as far as download speeds? I would guess as many or more people touching GTA Online as would be cracking open new Xboxes in a few months.

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        October 1, 2013 5:13 PM

        The current XBL patch updates usually go pretty quickly, and there are lot more 360 users than there will be Xbox One users on day one.

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          October 1, 2013 5:31 PM

          That is assuming that they both use the same infrastructure. I can bet you that they don't for now, but will get migrated in the near future.

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            October 1, 2013 5:47 PM

            why would the new Xbox not use the same infrastructure for content delivery?

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              October 1, 2013 6:03 PM

              [deleted]

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              October 1, 2013 6:14 PM

              While pretty good it can still use improvement. Same with PSN. IIRC Red Dead Redemption brought both services to a stand-still.

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              October 1, 2013 7:11 PM

              How about other systems, such as authentication?

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                October 1, 2013 7:27 PM

                again, why wouldn't it use the same system? It's still Xbox Live, it's still your Microsoft account and same gamertag. They've even already transferred Live across system launches before and kept in place previous generation limitations since it spans both systems (ie friends lists limits on the 360 due to Halo 2 limits running on XBL on the original Xbox)

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            October 1, 2013 6:53 PM

            Why wouldn't MS allocate the necessary resources to give themselves the best chance for a smooth console launch? We already know the resources exist and are being used with the current XBL.

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              October 1, 2013 7:04 PM

              I don't think that there ever was a smooth, wide scale launch of any massively online portal. It's really hard to estimate demand, software and balance it against budget.

              Put too much hardware (and software), and you risk wasting away money that didn't need to be, put too little and what's the worst that could come? It's hard to gauge beforehand.

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                October 1, 2013 7:13 PM

                [deleted]

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                October 1, 2013 7:34 PM

                This is precisely what "the cloud" is for. Dynamic allocation of resources using virtual machines to handle load spikes and only pay for what is needed. MS runs their own such service (Azure) and has for years. The reason this has been a problem for games specifically is they haven't figured out how to parcel things out well for this kind of distributed load balancing. Most other types of web services have, which is why Amazon's cloud service, Azure, and others have tons and tons of customers using dynamic VM allocation to handle load spikes. Remember how often little sites used to get Slashdot'd and Digg'd? Notice how it almost never happens now as there's no concept of Reddit'd (which is bigger than either of the two aforementioned sites).

                Again, this is not the first rodeo for XBL, this already happened when the 360 launched. Large dashboard updates have been delivered to more 360 users concurrently than there will be Xbox One users this fall.

                Obviously things can go wrong and who knows exactly what will happen, but we're not talking about some little company trying to write a cloud ready service for the first time. This is a service that has literally been running for over a decade already, driving what people expect out of an online gaming service on any platform, by a company that owns their own major cloud platform used by tons of Fortune 500 companies. A couple million Xbox One customers is really not that big a load compared to what is already happening on Xbox Live right now when a new CoD or CoD DLC launches, or GTA Online, or a major dashboard overhaul, etc.

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                October 2, 2013 8:20 AM

                [deleted]

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          October 2, 2013 7:59 AM

          Those 360 users however, will be staggering their downloads over time. The XB1 will be everyone who just bought the console logging in the same day.

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        October 1, 2013 5:30 PM

        Pretty much this.

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        October 2, 2013 11:50 AM

        So... around 15-20 minutes then?

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      October 1, 2013 6:08 PM

      20min is not as bad as my PS3 1hour update than another 1hour update for MGS4.

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      October 1, 2013 7:36 PM

      I know it's fun to hate on the XB1, but I think this will be my next gen console at first. Now that I don't have to worry about the Kinect, I have really no issues with it. The TV stuff is neat (although I do understand why folks not in the US are quite skeptical, I would be too), Titanfall looks god damn amazing, and most of my friends are on XBL so going to PSN for MP gaming would be less than ideal.

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      October 1, 2013 8:21 PM

      [deleted]

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      October 2, 2013 7:47 AM

      [deleted]

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        October 2, 2013 9:33 AM

        Why? The software involved can be distributed pretty much instantly over the internet, while the hardware involved takes months to assemble, QA, ship overseas, distribute to retailers, and stock. What sense is there in waiting to begin that process to wait on an update that can be delivered over the wire on day one?

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      October 2, 2013 8:24 AM

      lol. I am not sure how this is even news.

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      October 2, 2013 8:45 AM

      When November 22nd hits I will be 7 days into X Rebirth.

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