Console performance is an important factor for many avid gamers when choosing between different hardware. Modern games continue to grow more and more demanding with each passing years, often requiring tens to even hundreds of gigabytes of storage. With video games becoming grander than ever, the expectation grows from players to see a high-quality experience with a console, both in game and outside of their games. Now, Microsoft has revealed the Xbox developer is making adjustments to the Xbox Series X/S in order to enable faster boot times.Since the release of the Xbox Series X and S in late 2020, Microsoft has made frequent changes to the consoles to improve performance and make quality-of-life fixes. Xbox recently introduced the ability to instantly switch a TV's input back to the console by pressing the Xbox button on a controller. Microsoft has also added several smaller highly-requested features, like revealing details of secret achievements and installing games from PC. Now, a new update rolled out to Xbox Insiders will reduce startup times on Xbox consoles significantly.RELATED: Xbox Console Update Making Huge Improvement to AchievementsThe newest update to Xbox consoles was first noticed by Xbox Insider members, later being confirmed by Xbox's Director of Integrated Marketing Josh Munsee. Munsee revealed that Xbox had introduced a new boot up animation for Xbox Insiders with a significantly shorter duration. The new animation takes roughly four seconds to play before getting players into the console's home screen, a five-second decrease from the nine-second original version.

Xbox Series X/S consoles were not the only benefactors from the new update as reported by Senior Product Manager Lead Jake Rosenberg. Xbox users on Xbox One consoles are also seeing "noticeably faster" boot times as a result of the shorter animation. Microsoft did note that only users using the Energy Saver mode would benefit from the shorter animation, not being featured in Standby mode. The change comes as part of Microsoft's initiative to push Energy Saver mode after making Energy Saver the default power mode on Xbox Series X/S consoles earlier this year.

Xbox's newest initiative to improve Series X/S consoles come as Microsoft has seen significant gains in the console war with Sony over recent months. The Xbox Series X has outsold Sony's PlayStation 5 multiple times already throughout this year, most recently topping the PS5's sales in Japan last month. Sony's struggles with supply for the PS5 has seen Xbox take wins in a Japanese market typically dominated by PlayStation. The newest quality of life improvement will look to improve the experience for Xbox users across multiple platforms.

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Source: The Verge