The Xbox One has a fairly regular schedule for its updates, with everything first going through to the members of the Preview Program, and major feature additions or removals being well and transparently communicated to players beforehand. However, today, out of the blue, players who booted up their systems found a small, mysterious update for their console. There were no patch notes accompanying it, so players had no way to know what the update entailed.
Well apparently, it does nothing. Nothing on the surface, anyway. It seems to tweak something behind the scenes, something that ‘prepares [the system] for the future,’ according to Major Nelson.
As to exactly what this preparation for the future might be is anybody’s guess. It could be anything from an overhaul of how the Xbox One works offline (so features such as achievements, profiles, and pins are available offline too, and cock ups such as the recent Witcher 3 digital licenses debacle don’t get repeated), or it could be something related to Windows 10.
It looks like we will just have to wait and see for now.