Topic: The everything Xbox thread

@DarthNocturnal I am not familiar with Halo but are Halo MCC and Halo 5 online oriented?

@DarthNocturnal Weird. Is that stated on the disc itself? I mean the mandatory download?

@NEStalgia Thanks for the heads up. Will be grabbing a XBL Card after work.

@DarthNocturnal Oh ok. This is very weird. I hope someone could still try this offline thing and confirm the Xbox One X state on that matter.

@NEStalgia Ah... nice offer, but unfortunately, all of this month's money is already out the door, and the rest is for grocery shopping. I may have to consider going for bread and water for a few days, though...

@Zuljaras I wouldn't mind checking that for you, but I have an Xbox One S, and I honestly don't know if there is a difference between that model and the X, as far as online protocols and/or updates or mandatory downloads are concerned. An example of this is that you actually CAN download the 4K texture packs on the S, to an external storage device, so that they can be used if you eventually upgrade to a One X, in which case you won't have to download them on that console anymore. But obviously, it's only optional, whereas on the X, it's more often than not, a mandatory download.

But in all honesty, I sincerely believe that you shouldn't be so hell-bent on being offline with your console. No offense, but it's the 21st century, and being online with almost any and all devices (TV's, radios, phones, etc. etc. ) is simply a normal part of live nowadays, so why the hell would you want to forcefully deny your console that option? Especially since it's only to your benefit.

Even completely installable games, that can be played just fine from the disc install, will still receive patches and/or updates every now and then, and they only serve to improve the performance and as such, the experience of the game as a whole.

Personally, I wouldn't want to play a lesser version, if I know that an improved version is only a small download away, regardless of whether or not I've already installed it from the disc. And for most games I've played so far, the updates are never that big, so even with an average internet connection, you should be just fine.

The only valid reason I myself could come up with, is if I would have been living in an area with VERY bad internet, or highly variable qualities of internet, so if that's the case, I can understand, but otherwise not.

And I've already been used to it for more than a decade, seeing as the Xbox 360 also already had mandatory patch downloads for complete disc-based games. And that was even without having to install the games themselves...

So, to me, it really is nothing new, and I don't even notice it, seeing as the Xbox One automatically retrieves these downloads whenever they're needed, so all you have to do, is manage your hard drive space...

Why did they never do a Gears of War: Chainsaw Collection?

@Dezzy Backwards compatibility probably, MCC was before the days of XB1. Meanwhile from 2015, Microsoft have just used backwards compatibility where possible for other franchises (e.g. Rare Replay has separate downloads for each game that was released on 360 rather than 1 package with everything in Rare Replay).

@ThanosReXXX This option for 4k downloads is only for original and S models. I don't want to deny the updates I want to know if it possible to play the lesser version of the games if internet is not available.
I am asking only about games that are single player. I do not play online except World of Warcraft and Hearthstone.

@NEStalgia This guy was the last to update the thread in the Xbox forums.

"Hi,

Yes the Xbox One X works the same as the Xbox One and Xbox One S, update wise for games and console updates.
While it is advised to connect the console to the internet, you should be able to go offline as mentioned on the support page that Smwutches posted : https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/networking/using-xbox...
This is the same for any Xbox One console, so regular, S and X"

So there is no difference between the models except the X is faster and can use the 4k updates.

Bit of a confusing statement there, or unnecessary, if I understood it correctly, since I already said that the downloads are optional for the Xbox One S (and probably also for the OG Xbox One), but they ARE mandatory for the Xbox One X, so either you're repeating what I already said to you, or you mean something completely different, in which case I honestly have no idea what you're trying to tell me, also because I already know all that.

And no offense, but I do believe that several of us have already told you that you can more than likely play games offline, so what they've been telling you on that Xbox forum is nothing new either.

It also doesn't take anything away from my point in which I explained that it really isn't very useful to be offline with your console, seeing as so many of its functions specifically rely on being online, because that's just a default thing, in this day and age. And it has nothing to do at ALL with not being interested in playing online or whatever.

It's about enabling your console to receive either beneficial or even critical updates and patches, that will
(in some cases specifically) offer MASSIVE improvements to your gaming experience. And again:
why would anyone not want that? So, that question is still more or less unanswered, and I still think your focus on not wanting to be online, is a bit short-sighted or perhaps miscommunicated.

On a side note: as it so happens, I can totally relate to not wanting to participate in online multiplayer gaming, because except for one single game (Destiny 2) that I've played with a good friend of mine, who lives in another city, I haven't played a single online multiplayer game on my Xbox One S, and I only ever played a handful of games online on my Xbox 360, so I'm not much of an online gamer myself either, but I can still understand the need for modern consoles to be online regardless, because there's SO much more to being online than just online multiplayer gaming.

That guy in that last Xbox forum thread comment you posted, hits the nail right on the head by saying it really is advised to have the console be connected to the internet.

And on the page that he himself linked to, there's also a bit of rather crucial information:

Note

You must be online when you set up Xbox One for the first time. Without an internet connection, you can’t finish setup. After your Xbox has updated and you’ve added your profile, you can go offline.

And unless the area where you live has really bad internet, you should be just fine. The updates are mostly a one-time download, the first time you install a game, so once that's done, you don't really need to be online anymore to be able to play them.

Of course, this doesn't mean that there aren't going to be any additional updates anymore (heck, every once in a while, when I decide to boot up the old Xbox 360, to play an older game, I get a notification for a needed update for almost every title I own), but after that initial update that'll happen automatically during the first install,
you could indeed play the "lesser" version of any game.

If you'd want to, you could even uninstall just the core game, and leave the updates and/or additional content on your hard drive, and then reinstall the game, without ever needing any internet connection for additional and/or necessary downloads.

But anyway, between all of us, the forums and the official Xbox pages, it would seem to me that you will now definitely have the answers that you were looking for...

@ThanosReXXX Yes I got it. It is a matter of principle. I am not against updates.

But when people say that updates are mandatory and you CAN'T play the games just from the disc I guess it is flat out untrue.

I was left with the belief that the X is something different than the older models which it is not. It is the same console just way more powerful.

Also I told you about the option in the S model of 4k updates because this option is NOT present in the X menu at all. You have to turn off the internet or the updates will be forced on you.

That is all. Same deal as with the Xbox 360 just with bigger update sizes and one mandatory OS update.

@Zuljaras But that was my point: that this option is not there on the X was already known to me, which is also why I told you that on the X, it's mandatory (aka forced), whereas on the other models, you can choose to activate it or not, even though it won't do you much good on these other models.

So, it's actually kind of weird that the option is there in the first place, but on the other hand, it's handy if you ever upgrade from an S to an X, because the 4K updates can be rather hefty, so in some ways, it would be nice to already have them done before you upgrade to the more powerful console.

Game updates are indeed not mandatory, so people saying that this is the case, are indeed lying (or simply uninformed themselves), but the initial console update IS mandatory, hence that being done with the initial boot up, just as mentioned in that official Xbox help page you linked to.

@ThanosReXXX Finally we agree!
I misunderstand mandatory to play as "you CAN'T play without it".

This is where all the confusion came for me

Now I have to start saving money for One X and Pro This is the hard part.

@Zuljaras Well, in the case of the initial install of your console, mandatory does indeed mean that you can't play without it...

But that doesn't count for the games themselves. I've also wondered about that, ever since I had my One S, so I've actually looked up quite a bit of info on the subject myself.

That is probably also where a bit of the mutual confusion came from...

@ThanosReXXX I also forgot that you could update the console offline with USB flash drive. So Backup is also a possibility.

@Zuljaras Really? Doesn't sound very official to me, but interesting nonetheless.
On the other hand: if I can put an update on a USB flash drive, I've probably also used an internet connection, so I might just as well download it to the console directly, instead of taking an extra step in the process...

@ThanosReXXX Actually it is made as backup update method in order to update your console if something happens in the future and you do not have internet. You formatted or replaced a faulty HDD.
https://support.xbox.com/en-US/xbox-one/console/system-update...
And you could just have the USB flash drive stored as safety measure.

@Zuljaras Aha, well, then it's back to being interesting again...

@Zuljaras After having read through that article, I do ultimately come back to my previous assessment, though.
I can understand it could potentially come in handy, for safekeeping just in case something might happen, but seeing as it still needs an internet download, I'm sure that most people will just skip the step to put a backup on a flash drive, and just update the console directly.

I've never done (or needed to do) any backup on any of my consoles, and both my Xbox 360 and my Xbox One still have hard drives that are in perfect working condition. And I live in one of those countries where the internet is never a problem. Anything could happen, of course, at any time, but so far, I've been either pretty lucky or maybe I just take really good care of my consoles...

@Grumblevolcano Plus Gears isn't as massive a series as Halo. Gears is "popular-ish". Halo was the Fortnite of its generation.

@ThanosReXXX The confusion started with an FAQ page I posted some pages back right from the MS support pages that does say the downloads are mandatory and can not be played without downloading the X1X Enhanced updates first. Yet multiple MS chat support people told Zuljaras that you can play them without the download. Which one is right? We'll see. I'm curious. I'd test myself, but I've been buying digital-only on the X so the patches are all rolled into my download at the outset.

It's possible the FAQ page is outdated and an OS patch changed it since it had been written.

@ThanosReXXX Sony's always offered the OS firmware as a download for USB installation, and XBox seems ahead of Sony in terms of offline functionality for download content, so I'm not surprised you can do a USB install.

As for the utility, if you can't download gigs at home, you can download it somewhere else and just bring it home with you. I had to do that for a good many years

But you're into preserving your physical games and consoles for a long time as well, so that's something you'll definitely keep a copy of yourself I'd think!