With growing competition in the gaming industry rising, Microsoft has been quick to utilize digital technologies to make their platform more enticing to gamers. With services like their Xbox One Game Pass subscription program, which allows streaming of select games, Microsoft has much to offer to gamers looking for convenient ways to play popular titles. At this year’s E3 Xbox presentation, Microsoft announced the new Xbox One FastStart program which would make downloaded games faster for players to jump into as the downloading process runs. Now, the latest Xbox One update has brought this feature to reality.

The contents of the new Xbox One Update, including the Xbox One FastStart feature, has been detailed in a new Xbox Wire post. For select titles, the new FastStart program identifies the files that are needed to play the first sections of the given game, and prioritizes them so the user can begin playing as quickly as possible while the rest of the game finishes the downloading process.

Microsoft has had a “ready to start” feature that allowed players to play games while they download in the past, but this new FastStart feature is faster and different due to the fact that it involves involvement from the game’s publisher. As such, only a select number of games utilizing the feature for now include:

Xbox One games

• Arcade Game Series: Pac-Man
• Devil May Cry HD Collection
• Don Bradman Cricket 17
• Don’t Starve Together: Console Edition
• Game of Thrones – Episode 1: Iron from Ice
• Magic Duels
• Minecraft: Story Mode – Season Two – Episode 1
• Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm
• Neverwinter
• Pac-Man Championship Edition 2
• Rivals of Aether
• ScreamRide
• Tales from the Borderlands – Episode 1: Zer0 Sum
• The Flame in the Flood
• The Walking Dead: The Complete First Season
• Tropico 5 – Penultimate Edition
• Ys Origin

Xbox 360 games

• Dead Space 2
• Toy Story 3
• Viva Piñata

Original Xbox games

• Destroy All Humans!
• Fuzion Frenzy
• Sid Meier’s Pirates!

Some of these games are offered as a part of the Game Pass subscription, and Microsoft has promised that more games will harness the power of FastStart in the future. This is certainly a nifty feature for those wanting to jump into a newly downloaded game ASAP. Hopefully a Sonic the Hedgehog game uses FastStart in the future, so that the sound barrier can be broken from the player’s living room. What do you guys think about Xbox One FastStart? Let us know in the comments below!

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