Thanks to the recent Xbox App update, players can now pre-download Xbox games without owning them. This is a huge quality-of-life improvement, which will likely help Microsoft turn the tables with the upcoming new console generation.
Microsoft has recently made a surprising step by closing the biggest deal in the history of the gaming industry. The company bought ZeniMax Media along with all of its development assets for $7.5 billion, which effectively enriched Xbox’s in-house portfolio with all the current and future projects by Bethesda and other studios. This likely means that The Elder Scrolls VI, future Fallout games, DOOM Eternal sequels, and more won’t be available on PlayStation 5, likely releasing exclusively on Xbox Series X and S and PC, instead. On the approach to a new console generation with the Xbox Series console family, big studio purchases aren't the only much-needed changes Microsoft is bringing players.
The new Xbox App (currently in beta) has just updated on mobile devices, introducing a host of new features and precious additions. While the official Xbox announcement is heavy on intriguing information, one big improvement weirdly wasn’t mentioned. Xbox users can now pre-download any game on the Xbox Store directly to their console without proof of digital ownership. ResetEra users report that the feature has already been tested and works perfectly as intended. While this opens up a few unique opportunities, the most important among them is the benefit for those prefer buying physical copies of Xbox games. With the app update, they play any game right away upon making a physical purchase or rental thanks to their newfound ability to pre-download any title without an unnecessary DRM check.
This is a useful expansion of the Xbox App's and Microsoft Store's existing digital pre-install feature, which has already allowed digital players to start playing titles when they start their console rather than wait for long internet download times. This is a significant improvement that is hard to overestimate. According to the official announcement, the updated mobile app has been developed from scratch so that it could offer a much more robust experience - and, probably, match the upcoming premiere of Xbox Series X by providing a higher quality Xbox ecosystem experience. The newest Microsoft console is expected to be an absolute beast of machinery equipped with a custom eight-core 3.8GHz AMD CPU and a 12 teraflops-powered GPU. Now, all of this impressive hardware is accompanied by appropriate mobile software.
The current beta status of the Xbox App is probably the key reason why Microsoft hasn’t put an emphasis on the pre-download feature in the official announcement. This is by far the most exciting feature brought to the app’s functionality, an excellent addition to the recently updated and well-tailored Xbox ecosystem. Reinforced with the uncompromising power of the Xbox Series X and a bright first-party software future, Microsoft’s latest gaming platform has all the chances to perform well in the coming console generation.