Microsoft Decreasing Boot Time For Xbox Series X/S Via Latest Insider Build

Microsoft is decreasing the boot time of its Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles. Thanks to the latest Xbox Insider build, the boot-up time of both consoles has been shortened by roughly five seconds. Xbox’s director of integrated marketing Josh Munsee confirms this news online, as reported by The Verge.

In response to a Tweet, Munsee states that he worked with Xbox product manager Harrison Hoffman and senior product manager lead Jake rose to create a shorter boot-up animation. Per Munsee, the Xbox Series X/S boot animation has been reduced from roughly nine seconds to an estimated four seconds.

Can confirm – worked with @harrisonhoffman and @jakerose27 to create a shorter boot up animation (~4s) from the original boot up animation (~9s), helping to reduce the overall startup time.

— Josh Munsee (@joshmunsee) July 23, 2022

As of now, the enhanced boot time appears to only be available to Xbox Insiders. Plus, to take advantage of the speedier startup, players will have to ensure their Xbox Series X/S is set to Energy Saver mode rather than Standby mode. Having the console set to Energy Saver mode ensures that the console powers off entirely. This is an alternative to having the console on a stand-by mode. Thus, the Energy Saver mode is considered the more eco-friendly of the two plus saves on electricity.

This new decreased boot-up isn’t going to evolutionarily change the way players interact with their consoles. However, it’s a surprising change that wasn’t expected. The Xbox Series X/S has already decreased the wait time to power on a console and get to the dashboard when compared to the Xbox One. As we’re a couple of years into the console generation, it’s nice to see Microsoft looking at ways to improve the user experience on Xbox.

As of writing, there’s no word on when a wide rollout of the faster boot-up times will be available.