The Xbox Series X and S will soon launch twice as fast

Uff, the Xbox Series consoles are launching fast soon.

Since the current generation of consoles has so far been stingy with graphical innovations – ray tracing, for example, is still rarely used – Xbox Series X and S are characterized in terms of technology primarily by their lightning-fast NVMe SSDs.

These let loading times melt down to a few seconds and also allow us to jump back to the exact point at which we last finished a game. Microsoft calls the feature “Quick Resume”. If it weren’t for the Xbox Series X and S’s startup animation getting in the way, we’d be able to continue playing within moments, even if the console was turned off in between.

This apparently annoyed some Microsoft employees, which is why they quickly trimmed the video clip.

Shortened start animation in preview

In addition to the integration of Discord Voice, the current preview update also has a surprise in store in the alpha channel of the Xbox Insider Hub. Resourceful Xbox fans observed their consoles ready for launch now only needed 4 instead of the original 9 seconds:

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Applies only to the energy saving mode: Since the consoles already start faster in standby mode, the shortening of the animation only has an effect if you let your Xbox completely shut down.

The Xbox One consoles should also start faster

Jake Rosenberg, one of the product managers responsible for the new boot animation, confirmed that the Xbox One generation consoles also boot noticeably faster:

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A quick test on an Xbox One X gave us the following results:

Old start animation: 33 seconds
New start animation: 25 seconds

The difference isn’t as big as the Xbox Series consoles, but it’s still significant. It’s worth mentioning, however, that the Xbox One X’s internal hard drive has been replaced with an SSD. The start-up process should take much longer with a completely unchanged Xbox One X, at least that was the case before the current preview update, as among other things Real Neat Games reports.

Unclear release date

Updates in the alpha program are in the early stages of release. If you are not participating in an update preview, it may still be a while before you can enjoy the faster start-up process.

If you are curious, you can enter the preview program like this:

The new start animation is running really well for us, which is why we’re really excited about the change. While the current Xbox consoles never took long to launch, who has time to spare these days?

Would you actually like a cooler start animation like the Xbox Classic, or is the time saved more important to you?