Microsoft has finally made the offline diagnostic tools and mandatory update patch available for Xbox One owners. This patch was originally released just ahead of the Xbox One's inaugural launch last Friday, but the company quickly pulled the patch for undisclosed reasons.
GameZone caught wind of the news from a single forum post by an official Xbox support representative, where she offers users additional support and troubleshooting help for fixing some of the software issues and day-one problems of the Xbox One.
The official support page gives the same sort of walkthrough that was offered up in the unofficial Green Screen of Death troubleshooting guide we recently posted, giving gamers a few bullet-pointed tips for recovering or patching the Xbox One for optimal functionality (or any functionality at all).
There's a lot of stressing that the offline patch is for emergencies only, and that users should only revert to using the patch if they absolutely have no other options. Of course, for people who may not have a reliable internet connection or no broadband at all, the offline system patch is the only option.
Some people have claimed that if you don't have broadband you shouldn't buy an Xbox One. In all honesty, I agree. The Xbox One isn't designed for everyone and isn't even designed to be a very good game console. If you're rich, you have disposal income, an extremely fast internet connection and you don't mind that TV, sports and media voice controls take precedence over actual gaming, then yeah, the Xbox One is the perfect home entertainment device for you.
If you're a real gamer and you care about game culture, and you game seriously, and you aren't rich, obsequious, or can't afford the fastest, most reliable internet around, you may as well skip out on the Xbox One because it probably won't be worth the hassle. So much so that even Microsoft suggested that people who aren't rich or have the best broadband available, to simply take your Xbox One over to your friend's house to get the day one mandatory update.
Thankfully, the company has expressed slightly more decorum when dealing with their customer base by allowing customers to download the day-one patch and put it onto an NTSF formatted 2GB or higher USB stick. This means that instead of lugging an Xbox One over to your friend's house, you can just bring over the USB stick and install the update.
It's inexcusable that a company would be this daft with their software support for a consumer electronics device, especially considering that without the mandatory patch you literally cannot do anything with the Xbox One at all. Nata. Zip. Nil. Nothing. It's effectively a $500 paperweight and an even less effective brick.
Hopefully, Microsoft will start issuing out the patch with games so that anyone who buys the system and a game won't have to jump through hoops to update their system. Alternatively, if you really do have $500 to burn you might do better buying a Steam Machine from iBuyPower for the same price, with double the performance.
