One of the many concerns some Xbox players may have is regarding 4K assets- those things can get really large in terms of file size, and can be pretty rough on download caps and hard drive space. So will someone buying Forza 7 for their Xbox One S have to download the full file with the 4K assets too, needlessly straining their internet and storage?
As it turns out, no- only the Xbox One X downloads 4K assets, wherever relevant. Other consoles do not. “With the launch of Xbox One X, when it comes to game content our intention is to download the correct assets to the correct console,” a Microsoft representative told Stevivor.
The important thing here is that the Xbox One X will download 4K assets even if you have connected it to a 1080p TV- which should nonetheless lead to enhanced visual quality, thanks to supersampled 4K assets. ”
“Regardless of the TV you are playing on, 4K assets will be downloaded to Xbox One X (if available) and the standard 1080p assets will be downloaded to an Xbox One S,” the representative continued. “As part our developer readiness for Xbox One X, we have made available a feature which will give them significant flexibility when it comes to what gets installed on a user’s console,” the Microsoft representative continued. “In addition to 4K specific assets, developers have options when it comes to language specific assets as well, which depending on the title, can drastically reduce the install footprint. This ability to intelligently install the best assets for each console and language are available on all Xbox One devices, and it will be up to the developer of the game to determine the specific implementation.”
This sounds like a very smart implementation, and a neat way of side stepping what would otherwise be a pretty major problem. Kudos to Microsoft on this one. Now if only their game file sizes weren’t so obscenely huge…
