Download speeds on consoles are notoriously bad, especially if your internet isn’t lightning fast to begin with. A new feature rolling out now on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S for Xbox Insiders is aimed at improving them by making it easier to suspend existing games while downloading new ones.
“Suspend in the queue will let you download at full speed while making sure your game remains resumable (or quick resume-able on Series X|S),” Xbox engineering lead Eden Marie wrote on Twitter yesterday. She also shared a screenshot of what this new suspend functionality will look like when it eventually arrives for the rest of the platform’s users:
Currently, downloads are a lot slower when you have a game open because Xbox consoles reserve some of their connection capacity for the potential online functionality of whatever’s being played. The new suspend option will let you put your current game on hold without opening a new one in order to get the faster download speed.
It’s a pretty granular change, but also a very welcome one, especially if, like me, you basically always have games paused in the background. PS4 doesn’t currently have a similar option, and Switch makes you close out of a game entirely in order to download anything. On my Series S, meanwhile, I’m constantly deleting old games and downloading new ones via Game Pass. Given the range of big games coming to the Netflix-style subscription service recently, it’ll certainly come in hand whenever it goes live for everyone.
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