New Xbox One Update Issue Draws Concerns For The Future Of Game Preservation

One of the biggest pushes from Microsoft for the past span of consoles was backwards compatibility. With now three generations of legacy titles supported on the latest Xbox Series machines, users can revisit classic games from prior eras – both digitally or physically. However, the program was cut off since the platform’s 20th anniversary in 2021. Despite that, leaders did tout more support could be on the horizon.

One of the biggest drawbacks to the backwards compatibility effort is the always-online DRM. Although the firm did resolve this issue when it comes to Xbox One & Xbox Series X|S, legacy hardware like the original Xbox & Xbox 360 software do still require being plugged into the internet. And this does draw concern for content being further preserved.

Especially now with the Xbox 360 Marketplace officially shutdown this week, it only fuels hesitation for the direction of gaming. Recently, reports have gone out that the initial Xbox One ‘Durango’ units that launched the platform are now facing issues which make the systems lack functionality without a proper software update.

“When going thru the initial setup process it would try to start the day one update but then would error out everytime. It would say it needed the update but could not continue. […] As I looked into it and found there are many other people who encountered this as well. Some of them factory reset the systems and then couldn’t get the initial update again,” one report from NeoGAF shares that put the spotlight on the issue.

According to Digital Foundry via Eurogamer, it did notify Microsoft on the issue. Digital Foundry technology editor Richard Leadbetter did indicate that this issue will likely be resolved by Microsoft once identifying the issue at hand. However, this does draw questions about the longevity for support on platforms as they further intangle with online-only infrastructure moving forward.

What are your thoughts on this new development for Xbox One?