Xbox Ones Are Shipping Early, But Are Useless Until The 22nd

Are you excited for the Xbox One? Do you have a slow Internet connection? Prepare for those to be mutually exclusive states. Even if you get it, and a game, early, you will not be able to do anything with the two.

Our very own favorite furry hostile mammal, the Surly Badger, pointed us towards a detailed post on Neowin illustrating that at least two people have gotten an Xbox One early, courtesy of Target, and have been screwing around with it. The Day One update is, ready for this? 500 megabytes. Granted, for someone like me, I’ve downloaded games that are far larger, but it is kind of a buzzkill, and it’s one we’ll all get to share, since the PS4’s is apparently 300MB itself.

Worse, it’s an absolutely necessary buzzkill. In an interview with Engadget last Friday, well, read for yourself. Just prepare to be pretty ticked off if you’ve got a crappy Internet connection:

“A lot of the apps come with the day one update because they wouldn’t have even been done,” Penello added. “You’re gonna need to take this update. It’s not gonna be really an optional thing’.” Essentially, the Xbox One currently being manufactured contains a relatively old version of the console’s operating system, and thus the need for such an update.

Microsoft notes the download is to remove the system’s requirement to check in with the mothership every twenty-four hours. That’s why nothing works; it’s trying to find something that doesn’t exist.

It seems kind of a downer, though, for those who don’t have a great Internet connection. Come on, guys, you couldn’t have tossed this thing on a USB stick? Or a disc? We have those technologies now!

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