Microsoft’s Xbox Division Head Phil Spencer has been responding questions from gamers today, and as usual there’s some interesting information for Xbox One fans.
Install times is something in definite need of improvement. Hopefully Phil and the team can fix this as I've heard him comment on this issue multiple times now
The bd drives in both ps4/xb1 is supposedly quicker than that of the PS3 so why cant they just allow for disc play?
Seems the only system this gen that offers that is the wii-u and granted its specs dont compare to that of the ps4/xb1...it at least allows you to be playing your game after you inert the disc.
If MS was able to flip one switch they can flip another and make installs optional.
This is inaccurate. I won't claim to be an expert on exactly why it is the case as hardware is not my specialty. However for some reason the PS3 is a better Bluray player than the PS4 AND the Xbox One. There are multiple hardware reviews that compare the 3.
Sony usually spends a ton making their system this time they almost made a profit. Both systems have a bare bones player though it has a fast read speed. Again I really wouldn't be able to explain more than that but if you search it you can find it from several different sites.
On the subject, about debunking the rumor. He did not directly debunk it. Instead he danced around it with standard NON committal language.
"LOOKS made up" but no denying gears of war is going to be bundled. If that is not appealing to your judgmental assumption tendencies what is?
Not sent by me (rarely are rumors sent by Nelson wouldnt he get fired for that anyway?), but still no denying gears of war is going to be bundled.
"I have not seen those pics" (super non committal!) Deniability built in! too many ways to not be held to that statement. but no directly denying gears of war is going to be bundled.
"it wasn't announced by us" (what dummy would take this as proof? of course they didn't leak the announcement, publicly anyway) but no denying gears of war is going to be bundled.
These are standard insinuations to make people..."move along folks, there is nothing to see here".
These tactics has, become so repeated that it is almost PROOF to people used to marketing talk that it is actually true.
They just need to postpone online update at the same time. Without it, some games are ready to start at 15-20%. But because of the patches, which are mistakenly counted as installation time, it can take forever.
Some PS3 games took hours to install (the downloaded copy of Uncharted 3 by example... download takes forever, then after the end of times you need to wait until the next end of times for the install to complete!) anything abote 2 or 3 GB (any big titles) were tedious to download...
The PS4 fixed all this, you often don't even need to finish the download to start playing, this is pretty cool... same for disk based games, you can play while it downloads the first patch and installs in the background! (it usually takes about 1 or 2 minutes... much bette than the I have no clue how long it takes to copy 40GB to the HD then start downloading the patches.. then play).
Since the 360 handled this better than the PS3, I would have assumed MS made it at least as good as whatever they had before.. apparently they went for regression.
Last gen you have to install chapters in MGSIV manually and reinstall them if you wanted to play again. And actually, last gen possible to play from the disk many times because of much lesser volumes
i odnt have an xb1 but on ps4 u put game in and 20 seconds later u can play except if u want to go online and there is an update,but the update starts downloading instantly .
on xb1 do u have to install then download update after?or is it all done at same time as disc install.
I am sorry to say but phil is talking complete nonsense! i swear it, no bias i own all 3 current gen consoles and without a shadow of a doubt the PS4 leaves the X1 standing when it comes to install times! its got to the point where some times i just cant believe how much faster it is and so leave it be for another 15 minutes just to make sure any background installing is completed before i start to play!
Its annoying as hell sitting and watching the X1 chug along with installs and even when downloading a game digitally it just seems like it takes forever to download and decompress and install! where as the PS4 feels lighting fast for me with everything with regards to installing digital or physical. I find i dread installing any new games when i buy them where as on my PS4 i dont even give it a second thought!
This is a major pet peeve of mine, by far i use my X1 more as it now really is the centre of my living room with regards to media, this is an area where Sony are badly behind compared to the X1.
But install wise their really is no competition, the PS4 is substantially faster when it comes to installing data.
I really hope ms can fix this issue, because it is really starting to get to me and many others. Phil is clearly lying or misinformed! any one who truly owns both consoles will attest to the fact the PS4 is just so much faster at installing digital and physical games. Only fan boys will deny it, or maybe it has just been the games in particular which i have installed/own which are slow, painfully slow! I dont think its a blue ray drive problem i found even digital games are very slow compared to my ps4. A quick look on the xbox forums shows i am not alone and allot of gamers like me are frustrated.
I trust Microsoft will fix/improve it they have been killing Sony when it comes to improving their box and its feature set! every single month they are improving it, while for my liking Sony is just being too slow! we dont even have the suspend and resume feature yet on PS4 which they showed off at the reveal while on X1 i have using it since day 1! it truly is an awesome next gen feature! While i like share play problem is majority of gamers who dont have the best internet cannot use it, so its useless for them while a feature like suspend and resume every one will love once used to it!
@KiwiViper85 LOL that's besides the point! clearly some thing is wrong with the X1 way of doing installs! this needs improving is all i am saying! I talked my brother into buying an X1 recently (hes and xbox guy) and let me tell you he actually thought some thing was wrong with his brand new machine because of how long it was taking! this is a big problem with X1 and needs to be addressed! PS4 installs are lightning fast! I would love to see my X1 reach that level!
Your pretty much right about Xbox 1 being slower then Ps4 with installs and updates so yeah I hope MS will improve it with future updates.then again I'm also quite happy how much updates MS has done to Xbox 1 to the point where it's basically a new X1. Sony on the other hand is really slow with updates and that they had problems with their updates as well. So I'm hoping they will get better with updates in future.
@poor_cus_of_games LOL its N4G logic buddy! sadly fan boys from all camps (Playstation, xbox, nintendo and pc) run rampant here! and they will literally throw out disagrees and bubble you down for anything you say against their chosen piece of plastic! regardless of if its true or constructive criticism! sadly its the community we have here on N4G. I just ignore them simple as lol.
Here have a bubble up for both @poor_cus_of_games and AnimeFreak013 as a thank you for keeping it real! I love all 3 current gen consoles but all 3 have problems.
Anyway happy gaming guys on whichever platform you do it on! :)
You can start playing XB1 games when the install is somewhere between 25% - 50%. You never have to wait for the whole installation. You don't own an XBox One obviously or you would know this.
Who doesn't have an xbox one? i do hope you were not replying to me, in any case a quick look at my avatar picture and profile picture will show how i get down!! that's how i roll! i buy every platform every gen, and have been owning every one for the last 30 years LOL
@LonDonE Yet you didn't know you could start an XB1 game after it has installed 25%-50% of the game? I buy every game console as well. You never answered my question on what you thought Phil Spencer lied about. What do you think Phil was lying about?
It really seems that the immediacy of play that the 360 represented last-gen has been completely turned on its head with the design of the Xbone (obvious why), and whereas PS3 was the "slow" console of last-gen, the PS4's focus is clearly on the speed and efficiency of the interface, as well as getting into games as quickly as possible.
Aren't the install times on the Xbone even worse than the PS3's mandatory ones? Yet I see nobody complaining about this, in the same way you heard about it about the PS3 last-gen. You get a game home, and in some cases you have to download patches of up to 20GB that can take hours, and then you have to install them. The difference between install times on both consoles is night and day. This definitely needs to be fixed, and it's a good thing Spencer has been looking into it.
I agree that install times are horrible on the Xbox One. They aren't "hours" though, the Master Chief collection was the slowest install and update I have personally run into and that was about 45 minutes from start to finish on my wifi network that averages about 15mb/sec download. Blu-ray is the reason we see these installs and why PS3 took so long compared to DVD9 on the 360. Now that both use Blu-ray we are seeing PS3 era install times on the new console. Sony has done an excellent job with the PS4 in reducing load times, but they still exist and the length of time depends on the game. Unfortunately it looks like installs and updates are the norm until gaming becomes all digital. It's funny how we went from being upset about having to connect to the internet every 24 hours just to have games that are non-functional without an internet connection. Suddenly that check in seems pretty trivial. Both consoles dependency on an internet connection became painfully clear on Christmas day when the networks were down.
Your spot on. The check in was never an issue for me but I can see why it was for some people but when you think about it 95% of people who own a Xbox one or ps4 will have it connected to the internet 24\7 anyway and to use the consoles it seems you still need to have it connected to the internet.
Unfortunately most of our technology is now connected to the internet in one way or another tablets, phones, game consoles, TV's and more its just the way the world is going.
@death ...it also depends on your internet connection as well as the size of the game...with my connection that master chief collection would take me about 6hrs or more seeing as how currently a 7gig digital game would take me over 4hrs to download on the 360. This with the cheapest internet available to me (3mbps)...usually i just leave games downloading overnight... For these blu ray games that are near 50g i would venture to say it could take me up to 16hrs or more if i were to buy them digitally.
The Halo: MCC is 59 GB install. lol!! I know this because I've installed it twice on two difference HDD I have on my XB1. I had to delete one of them. 59GB is HUGE. So it's no surprised it took forever to load. I let my install overnight while I slept.
@LonDonE I'm not sure what you think Phil is lying about. He admits the installation is slow on the XB1 and that the XBox One team needs to find a way to correct the problem. So what is he lying about?
i didnt have an issue while i was on my ps4 during the hiliday down time. i was on driveclub,ac unity and i could even download the update for ACunity (6.5gb)while psn was down.
The problem isn't the bluray disc, its the fact that X1 makes you install more of the disc than PS4 does, and the PS4 has decompression hardware that the X1 doesn't, thereby making the process much, much faster. They both use a 6 speed bluray disc drive which is 27MB per sec, compared to 9MB at best for the PS4 and 12MB for the 360. On the PS4 any disc game literally takes less than a min to be able to play. and you don't have to do an update before you can play the game. The update will just download in the background and once downloaded can be install in secs.
Totally unprofessional click bait title. He did not debunk Gears Collection. He said he did not send out a press release about it. All he said was "Ive never seen those pictures before".
Exactly, I even feel like he purposely worded it as to not deny a gears bundle is coming, but rather this certain press release and pictures are a fake.
Hhhmm.. Gears of War is schedule for 2016 release. Why would there be a bundle in 2015? There wouldn't be. It's obviously a fake. Maybe you are thinking about Tomb Raider which will most likely have a bundle and is scheduled for Winter 2015 release. Quantum Break, Fable Legends, Scream Ride and Ori will be released before the E3.
its BS to me to buy a game and then pop it in and wait....wait....and wait.... install complete .... oh theres a update after that, this is t he future of gaming and next gen with nintendo running similar specs to the competition trust me ill go with the system who u can put the game in push play and have fun within minuets of insertion.... example midnight launch pick up a game by the time i get home 12:30 maaaybe then wait for a long install ? no thanx
PS4 is definitely faster with the install then the X1, however the comparison I don't think can be called lightning quick on the PS4 vs the X1.
The only thing I like about digital purchases on the X1 is that I can use my phone to access Smart Glass and make a purchase from work at 10am. Then when I get home about 6:00pm it has been downloaded and installed and ready for me to play. I do not know if the PS4 has the same ability.
That's not true, my X1 don't take no longer then my ps4 does to load games,...I think they both suck loading games,... I wish they would just stayed like the 360 load off the disc worked great,...
Just to answer your question the playstation app has been able to make purchases and start download since launch day. The smart glass app just started letting you do purchases and downloads a few months ago. My PS4 downloads and installs games at several times the rate of my XB1. Plus it installs all updates simultaneously unless the game finished the install before the update finished which is a rare occurrence. Even with that it's night and day. My XB1 is the multimedia king but games and the handling of them is not it's Forte.
Just like the ps3, which I have a SSD in, you can do the same with ps4. Plus SSD is dirt cheap atm. No need for a external drive running yet another cord to the power strip. Haven't looked to see if the XB let's you swap the internal.
Install times is something in definite need of improvement. Hopefully Phil and the team can fix this as I've heard him comment on this issue multiple times now
interesting
he says most games are equal for install times,
however from my understanding ps4 allows you to start playing a game before its done where as xb1 doesnt?
It really seems that the immediacy of play that the 360 represented last-gen has been completely turned on its head with the design of the Xbone (obvious why), and whereas PS3 was the "slow" console of last-gen, the PS4's focus is clearly on the speed and efficiency of the interface, as well as getting into games as quickly as possible.
Aren't the install times on the Xbone even worse than the PS3's mandatory ones? Yet I see nobody complaining about this, in the same way you heard about it about the PS3 last-gen. You get a game home, and in some cases you have to download patches of up to 20GB that can take hours, and then you have to install them. The difference between install times on both consoles is night and day. This definitely needs to be fixed, and it's a good thing Spencer has been looking into it.
Wow, Sudeki...I had to actually Google that game just to see what the heck these guys were talking about.