The Xbox One X sells itself as the most powerful console available. Like the PS4 Pro, you’ll never be forced to upgrade to enjoy enhanced graphics on supported games. Instead of coming standard on your regular Xbox One console, 4K enhancements can be selected and downloaded — it’s all optional, but if you’re looking to get the most bang for your console graphics buck, 4K is the way to go.
NOTE: This feature is for the standard Xbox One consoles — basically, you can pre-download games and transfer them to your new Xbox One X.
Below, we’ll give a quick primer explaining the process to upgrade games. The 4K “patch” isn’t exactly standard, but there is a standardized method to download the 4K update for each and every game in your Xbox One library. It’s really simple.
If you’re new to Microsoft’s super-powered console, here’s a list of confirmed games enhanced on the Xbox One X. For more information on the console itself, check out the Xbox One X breakdown, detailing everything we know about Microsoft’s enhanced Xbox.
Xbox One X: How To Upgrade Games To 4K
To enable 4K upgrade downloads for Xbox One X compatible games, follow these steps. [As of publishing, this feature isn’t available for the public, but will be included in a future update for all Xbox One consoles soon.]
- Open Settings
- Go to the System tab
- Select “Backup & transfer”
- Check on “Download 4K Game Content”
Once enabled, your Xbox One will automatically queue 4K game content updates after installing your Xbox One X compatible games. We’ll let the official in-system description give you all the details.
Automatically download available 4K game content for your installed games. This will let you move games and their 4K content to your Xbox One X using external storage or network transfer.
4K content can be more than twice the size of the original game, so plan your network and storage accordingly.
To download 4K content for currently installed games, go to Settings -> System -> Updates and make sure you’re keeping your games and apps up to date.
And there you have it. You can pre-downloaded 4K content for games on another console, then transfer the data to your Xbox One X if you’re planning on upgrading. Naturally, we assume the Xbox One X will automatically download 4K content, but we wouldn’t be surprised if you can disable 4K content downloads in pretty much the same way.
