Opinion PS5 Xbox Series X|S

Smart Delivery Needs To Be Standard For All Consoles Moving Forward

This week Phil Spencer, Xbox Head, discussed a lot of details about the Xbox Series X on Xbox Wire. There were a few details that were confirmed, though we knew them already, but one of the best new features, in my opinion, was Smart Delivery. This is a feature that sees all first-party Xbox games for Xbox One get automatically added to a users library if they buy an Xbox Series X. If there’s an Xbox Series X version of those games, then the user will get that updated version for their new console, instead of needing to purchase a new copy of the game like we’ve needed to in the past.

xbox-series-x-smart-delivery

Buy One, Get One Free

The way Spencer describes it, all first-party games will be given the Smart Delivery treatment as standard. That means that if Stare of Decay 2 comes to Xbox Series X, and you buy the new console, you get that new version of the game because you already own it. Spencer was pretty strategic with the way he talked about Smart Delivery, because we now know that the feature is open for third-party developers and publishers to use if they want to. So if a game launches for Xbox One, and then a new version comes to Xbox Series X, you shouldn’t have to pay for that new version at all. If you do, you know the developer or publisher is being sneaky and underhanded.

With the last console generation transition there were a number of games that launched for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 simultaneously. Others, like The Last Of Us, initially launched for PlayStation 3, but then saw remastered versions release for PlayStation 4. We had to buy those games again if we wanted to enjoy the updated version of the game, meaning that we ended up spending at least £80 on a single game, providing you purchased both versions brand new at launch.

I think that Smart Delivery needs to be an industry standard, because games are really expensive these days. With The Last Of Us Part 2 on the horizon, I don’t want to end up buying the game twice just because the Playstation 5 won’t launch for another 6 months. with Smart Delivery as a standard, new console generations will be better, because consumers will feel better about buying a new console when they know that all of their favourite games are on it, plus some new ones that they couldn’t play before.

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