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Xbox Series X|S Lets You Delete Parts of Games to Save Storage Space

Xbox Series X|S Lets You Delete Parts of Games to Save Storage Space - News

by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 June 2021 / 4,698 Views

The Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S will be launching worldwide in just over a month on November 10. One issue that has people worried about the next-generation consoles is the amount of storage space. The Xbox Series X comes with a 1 TB SSD, while the Xbox Series S comes with a 512 GB SSD. Actual available storage will be less as the OS and system files take up a fair chunk of storage.

Microsoft's Jason Ronald in an interview with Major Nelson has revealed some new details on the two consoles that will help free up storage. Developers will be allowed to give players the option to develop portions of the game. An example is when someone is done with the campaign of a game they can remove it, but keep the multiplayer installed. 

"Even beyond the hardware, we’ve actually made user interface improvements to make it easier for you to manage your storage. As an example, one of the new features we’re adding is actually for, if a title chooses to support it, the ability to selectively uninstall different components of the game.

"Let’s say you play a campaign as an example, and then you want to focus exclusively on multiplayer. If the developers chose to support it, you can actually uninstall the campaign itself, so that you can be more in control of how you’re actually using your storage, so you really get the most benefit out of the available storage that you have."


A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.


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30 Comments
Vendrom (on 03 October 2020)

I remember such rumor for the PS5 months ago. I wonder if it actually happens on that system as well, cause it could save a lot of space

  • +7
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The Fury (on 03 October 2020)

An extension of the current install the campaign first then the MP after right, just uninstall the MP/Campaign bit. A nice feature but I hope developers utilise it. For games like Cod I'm all for it, as having to install ALL of CoD MW just for Warzone is just annoying but for many games it might not or be feasible, fighters for example.

  • +6
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VAMatt (on 03 October 2020)

I would think developers would mostly support this. You don't want gamers deleting your whole game when you could have them leaving half of it installed. Much more chance that they spend money in mtx, or decide not to sell the disk into the used games market.

If I'm right, this could be a very helpful feature for storage space management. And, they must have a decent sense that devs will .make use of the feature, otherwise they wouldn't bother to create it or talk about it.

  • +5
hush404 (on 04 October 2020)

Man.. if I could ditch the MP portion of most games, I'd be so fucking happy.

  • +2
FormerlyTeamSilent13 (on 04 October 2020)

This is a very important feature. Easy to question if the storage space will be enough (especially with the S) and with the heavy price of the expansion slot this will at least help people not need more storage as quickly. It also depends how many games like Warzone exist in next gen versus Ghosts of Tsushima type optimization. I've seen YouTubers suggest that SSD optimization makes it easier to shrink game size (idk how true that is). It depends how much usable SSD you actually get on the S, but at the very least you should make it through the holiday with a bunch of games and not need to upgrade.

  • +1
Airaku (on 03 October 2020)

There's already a few select games out this gen that let you do select between just the multiplayer or single player portion. Not many support it though.

  • +1
SuperRetroTurbo (on 04 October 2020)

This is actually a huge deal. Good to see MS doing some pioneering.

  • 0
OneTime (on 04 October 2020)

I would assume that the console would just do this automatically (if it's connected to the Internet). There's no point having a half-empty disk, and you obviously won't have 1Tb of save files... The logical conclusion is that the console will need to juggle bits of "less needed" game data in the background.

Delegating this task to the user is a bit of a cop-out, IMO... Maybe it's broken and they need to fix it?

  • 0
Giggity_goo (on 04 October 2020)

can do that on xbox one but hardly any games support it but ye its good because is some games i that i have no interest in playing the multiplayer part

  • 0
EricHiggin (on 03 October 2020)

So only uninstall once downloaded? Those who have poor internet would really like to be able to choose solo, multi, or both in the first place. Having to download 100GB to delete half immediately seems like a waste.

  • 0
Runa216 (on 03 October 2020)

Just cut out all the online features in every game aside from Dark Souls/Demon's Souls! Save SO much room.

  • 0
Runa216 Runa216 (on 03 October 2020)

Meant to be replying to the guy who mentioned the same feature on PS5...downvoted myself because I effed up.

  • -3
ironmanDX Runa216 (on 04 October 2020)

😂

  • -2
KratosLives (on 04 October 2020)

Come on people, no need for laziness. Just delete the game you aren't playing, only takes 5 minuted to reinstall.

  • -2
Zkuq KratosLives (on 04 October 2020)

And up to 15-20 minutes to install updates too... If all you wanted was a quick session with a game (which is exactly what I'd like sometimes), that's way longer than it should be.

  • 0
Pemalite KratosLives (on 04 October 2020)

5 minutes to install?
Did you hack your console and replace that 36MB/s Blu-Ray disk with one from the future?

  • 0
KratosLives KratosLives (on 04 October 2020)

Takes 10 minutes max to reinstall off disc with updates

  • 0
Zkuq KratosLives (on 05 October 2020)

It sounds like Xbox has things much better than PlayStation then, or your PlayStation is much faster than mine for no obvious reason. Ten minutes is definitely possible, but there are many games that take way longer.

  • 0
KratosLives KratosLives (on 05 October 2020)

you can always do it before lunch or a shower . But the issue with the ps4 was the duplicating of files for security reasons. Alot of wasted sotrage space every time an update/patch acame along. They conformed it wouldn't be the case for ps5, so any deleting of game/reinstalling will be much less this time around.

  • -1
Zkuq KratosLives (on 05 October 2020)

That's not an issue if I plan ahead, but I don't always plan ahead. When I just want to play a bit of something quickly, 'before lunch or a shower' or otherwise waiting for ten minutes is a dealbreaker. If I have less than an hour to spare, I'm not likely to pick a game that's going to take more than ten minutes to get ready to play. That's both inconvenient and wasteful. I do hope you're right about the next generation improving things though.

  • 0
KratosLives (on 03 October 2020)

Come on people, no need for laziness. Just delete the game you aren't playing, only takes 5 minuted to reinstall.

  • -3
ironmanDX KratosLives (on 04 October 2020)

Unless you have a digital edition or series s.

It's a useful feature.

  • 0
Mr Puggsly KratosLives (on 04 October 2020)

Its a great feature for massive game that have various modes, such as campaign and MP.

  • 0
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