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Comment by Flere-Imsaho | Hacker News Reader

> Reading this made me remember why I stopped playing my Xbox One: never-ending updates.

My experience with Steam is very similar (I don't have it run on startup because I like my PC to do other things from playing games).

Online updates really have ruined gaming for a lot of people.

Just like vinyl, humans seem to prefer a physical "thing" they pick up - put in the machine - and instantly have access to the "thing". It's simple, predictable, fixable (generally) and swapable. The digital revolution is not what we had hoped for...

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I've been replaying a lot of Gamecube (emulated) games recently and its kindof shocking just how quick you can get into the game.

From hitting run Run to first Player Input is seconds in most cases. No console bootup, no system updates, no game patches, no agreeing to game EULA version 5.129912342, no denying the game access to online content on every third screen, etc.

I'm sure its loading slightly faster emulated, but 90% of it is just not having the junk that has accumulated over the last 20 years.

I had a Gamecube back in the day and I remember its optical drive was quite fast and loading times were short, but other machines were nowhere as fast, the PS1 and PS2 were notorious for long loading times.

Pretty much the Switch experience. It sometimes downloads updates, but system updates are like 10 seconds, and games are updated in the background seamlessly. I don't play Fortnite, but it's also always updated in the library.

Yes, if you don't keep it powered, it won't do that, but why wouldn't you if it just stays in the dock dark and quiet?

Nintendo finally implemented a modern update system that installs the new version in a new volume, reboots you into that volume, and deletes the old one once booted.

It's why it's so fast. The work happened before you pressed update.

Maybe I am being naive but doesn't that seem like a basic and effective approach that others should have been able to implement too? Why doesn't Xbox or Microsoft do it? Optimistically download updates so that if the user wants, it is ready to go. If low on space, sacrifice those cached updates because they can be downloaded again.

It's a combination of two things that never should have been normalized:

- Steam forces game updates, even for single player games.

- terrible delta updates. Baldurs Gate 3 had 8 patches in 3 Years. That's 800GB of updates.

If a patch drops on the afternoon you planned with your friends, you're not playing that night (actually happened to us). Both decisions should have caused outcries, but I guess people would rather overpay for fast internet contracts.

I check for game and system updates on my Deck before and after a session and it just takes a few minutes at most. I get excited to read changelogs if a game has a big update. These updates are not automatic/forced if you don't want them to be, and for singleplayer stuff at least you can just go play the old version if you're in a hurry or have little to no Internet.

> I check for game and system updates on my Deck before and after a session and it just takes a few minutes at most.

Right, that makes sense if you have sessions often. But, the thread started with automatic updates being bad for occasional users because they either have to waste energy keeping the machine on all the time to get updates in the background or have their mood cooled when they want to play but are forced to wait 30 minutes for updates.

Personally, I use Steam often but even then I get annoyed at updates. If I quit Steam, I sometimes have to wait for it to download Steam updates. Sure, it's not 30 minutes, but they happen when I want to play. I keep Steam open on my always-on machine and it annoys me. There's a reason I run manual updates on my computer on Fridays... then I don't get interrupted. Apps that auto update suuuck if you value your time.

Steam update is FAST. Less than 10 seconds and their CDN saturates any pipe. And since it’s a PC you can do other things while waiting.

Xbox is a dedicated gaming device and while the game/device is updating I’ll have to sit there. Plus the updates for some reason slows down the longer it takes. They’ve lost my attention.

>Plus the updates for some reason slows down the longer it takes.

They're probably using the same technology as Windows Update.

I don't think you could say humans prefer a physical thing, as for a majority of mediums, digital is the winner, by a significant margin.

Of my friends who own vinyl collections, they almost always use Spotify/Apple Music 90% of the time.

I've never had a steam update take more than 30secs.

Game updates can take a lot longer if you need them (ie multiplayer) to play. idk

steam does not force you to update though. you can just start the game without updating. if it's multiplayer ofc it might require an update anyways

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