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Neowin: Xbox One lacks proper storage management; Microsoft says it is 'automatic'

Syril

Member
Wait, are they saying that if your connection is down or of their servers have issues, your games can't save or load?
 

Mudkips

Banned
That's not how it works.

We do automatically sync Save Games and Upload clips, so there is no need for storage management on that - it's all in the cloud.

For full downloads and Aps we do NOT automatically delete anything. You get a prompt when you run out of space, and you can manually uninstall what you want.

Keep in mind, external storage support is coming post-launch. This is a short-term issue we know needs to get better, but just for clarity we don't auto-delete anything.

Crisis averted, though it would be preferable if people didn't have to wait for the disk to be full to go in and manage their space. People should be able to check on and manage their storage at any given time so they can anticipate and plan.

Imaging buying a hot new game on release day and being confronted with a "Nope, can't play until you clear out some shit." prompt. You haven't finished hot old games 1-5 yet, and mainstay multiplayer games 1-5 and useful apps 1-8 don't deserve to go either. If the user had known about this in advance, they could have cleared out hot old games 1 and 2 from their backlog in the prior weeks and avoided the situation.

Edit: Sounds like people can go in at any time to delete, but without knowing the total space and available space, it's guess work.
 

andycapps

Member
what? in iOS you manage your own storage.

Not to the granularity that Android provides. Android OS provides info on what within the application is taking up space and allows you to clear the cache for the app or uninstall the whole thing, vs iOS just allowing you to view the total space taken up and uninstall the whole thing. So yeah, if this doesn't allow you to view how much space is being taken up, it's similar to iOS storage management compared to Android, but not quite the same.
 
Why would you lose them? They are backed up to the cloud. That is the very opposite of losing them. There is more chance of your console HDD corrupting than the cloud servers losing them. If anything the cloud servers will be backed up regularly by MS in case they need to restore for any reason.


If everything is working fine...it's fine.

If one thing goes sideways though...it all falls apart. (My internet connection. Microsoft's reliability)

This is just a blatant attempt to take even more control from the people buying their product.

...and keep your fuckin' hands off my game saves. Seriously. The first time I want to play a game and can't get access to my save file and lost my progress...yeah...this process sucks.
 

Vito

Banned
You can compare this to android vs ios approach. Android let's you and even sometimes expects you to micromanage your storage. iOS on the otherhand walls you off. The rationale behind iOS is that you shouldn't have to worry about your usage as data is constantly flowing up into the "cloud" to free up local storage.

Even Windows Phone has user managed storage:

http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/how-to/wp8/basics/storage-on-my-phone

despite having SkyDrive integrated (and Android has Google Drive offers).
 

operon

Member
That's not how it works.

We do automatically sync Save Games and Upload clips, so there is no need for storage management on that - it's all in the cloud.

For full downloads and Aps we do NOT automatically delete anything. You get a prompt when you run out of space, and you can manually uninstall what you want.

Keep in mind, external storage support is coming post-launch. This is a short-term issue we know needs to get better, but just for clarity we don't auto-delete anything.

Thanks for the clarification
 

x-Lundz-x

Member
085YnzT.jpg


So something like this exist in the X1 OS?

No, I'm pretty sure that does not exist (in that format) but you can probably go to the individual app / game itself and bring up an options menu and delete it that way if I understand him correctly.
 

Skilletor

Member
Yes you can. The only thing you can't see is the amount of storage available on the HDD. You can manually delete things, and when (if) you run out of space you manually delete to make room. We don't just start deleting things.

We went with user-upgradable external storage vs. internal replaceable. That feature is coming after launch, and at that point there will likely be more sophisticated storage management.

Can I access my saved games offline?

?
 

ironcreed

Banned
Yeah, they need to just come out and clarify if we can still access our saves offline. It seems so silly to even have to ask that question over something that should be a given. Yet, here we are left wondering.
 

Foghorn Leghorn

Unconfirmed Member
Not to the granularity that Android provides. Android OS provides info on what within the application is taking up space and allows you to clear the cache for the app or uninstall the whole thing, vs iOS just allowing you to view the total space taken up and uninstall the whole thing. So yeah, if this doesn't allow you to view how much space is being taken up, it's similar to iOS storage management compared to Android, but not quite the same.

Yeah, but not really. It would be the same if I couldn't manage my storage on iOS at all and it started deleting my apps, pics and music and I had to redownload them if I wanted to access them again.
 
It should be obvious, despite what MS says about it, that the reason this isn't present is that there just wasn't time to finish the feature. I'd bet good money it will be added in time.
 
Penello didn't mention disc based game install management at all so his clarification is inadequate.

This sounds a little too reminiscent of how the 360 handles title updates. Part of the reason I never purchased a 360 was the inability to manually manage patch data. When 360 eventually stops being supported, and title updates are no longer available for redownload, if I've played one too many games, all of a sudden my saves and dlc will become incompatible due to an auto-deleted title update.
 
It should be obvious, despite what MS says about it, that the reason this isn't present is that there just wasn't time to finish the feature. I'd bet good money it will be added in time.

How hard is it to display the size of your installed games? An intern could probably do that in 30 minutes.They obviously know the information, all they need to do is display it on the screen.

Makes me wonder how much space the OS uses.
 

andycapps

Member
Yeah, but not really. It would be the same if I couldn't manage my storage on iOS at all and it started deleting my apps, pics and music and I had to redownload them if I wanted to access them again.

It sounds fairly similar to iTunes Match, honestly. BTW, I don't like this storage management idea at all, I was just trying to flesh out what the previous poster was probably talking about in their comparison.
iPhone user here too
 

hipbabboom

Huh? What did I say? Did I screw up again? :(
Wait, so how do you manage that stuff if your Xbone is not connected to the Cloud?

It syncs saved games to the cloud meaning they're always on your hard drive. It's in the cloud so you can pull it down from other Xboxes you log into and sync those back to your main system.
 

thejazzking

Neo Member
Is anybody able to clarify how saving your game works offline? Or what happens if your game is saved on the cloud, but you wish to play offline at a later date? Surely there is some local save storage...

These things (including much of MS now revised DRM plans) wouldn't be that much of a problem if we were ten years in the future and everybody had 100MB+, incredibly stable internet. As it stands, I often have to wait weeks when I move house to get internet sorted out. And sometimes we have sync issues. I should be able to play (and save) offline as I please. This was one of the reasons I immediately dismissed the Xbone when it was first revealed.

Apologies for rant.

Edit: I have a feeling this was just answered by above. Thanks.
 

x-Lundz-x

Member
just asked albert about saving games.

If you are offline, games will save to the hdd and then when you are back online the saves will sync to the 'cloud'

Ok, so what if you are never online? You know, the whole thing they patched out of the Xbox One due to the backlash?

Can we manage those saves?
 

Foghorn Leghorn

Unconfirmed Member
Did the MS guy say above that when you do run out of room you get an option to delete things, which I assume is their form of management.

It's still not adequate IMO.

Too be honest, Albert has said a lot of things in the past that haven't really panned out.
 
Not being able to access your save files offline is god awful. It sounds like some stuff is still locked behind the "always online" functionality and needs to be patched later on.
 

FlyinJ

Douchebag. Yes, me.
I just can't wrap my head around why MS just keeps shitting next to the toilet every time there is news about their console.

I mean, seriously, why not just let people see how much space is left on the drive?

Did they do market research and find out that if they displayed this, the meat head football watching demographic wouldn't buy the console?

It's a single number for chirssakes... and extremely useful for people. If you're terrified of frightening the apparent luddite demographic that is so important for you, make it a hidden option. Or make people answer a simple math question before the system displays it.
 

E92 M3

Member
Not being able to access your save files offline is god awful. It sounds like some stuff is still locked behind the "always online" functionality and needs to be patched later on.

I don't think that's been confirmed yet and would essentially mean always online is necessary.

Albert please elucidate on the save issue please.
 
Wait ....

So, lets say I play tons of forza, then I stop playing and buy and play other 10 games.

Then 6 months later I get an itch to do some quick laps in Forza, I plug in my wheel and turn on the box...

The Xbox need to download the whole game again, right???

Absolutely ridiculous
 
Wait ....

So, lets say I play tons of forza, then I stop playing and buy and play other 10 games.

Then 6 months later I get an itch to do some quick laps in Forza, I plug in my wheel and turn on the box...

The Xbox need to download the whole game again, right???

Absolutely ridiculous

Well it appears now with albert's input you can choose what gets deleted so not sure what the automatic comment means

That being said you will eventually have to prioritize games at some point assuming you feel up the hard drive which isn't difficult. Option for External drives will be available for game data storage sometime next year
 

Jack_AG

Banned
Why is everyone so worried about cloud saves? GFWL never had issues with save files. Ever. Super ever. Super duper never ever.
 

Talax

Member
Ok this is really confusing. If someone can answer my question I'll be really grateful.

If I save my game for the last time and then connect to the cloud, the save data gets uploaded. What happens to my offline save data? What if I don't connect to the internet again? Will I still have access to the save file?
 
Ok this is really confusing. If someone can answer my question I'll be really grateful.

If I save my game for the last time and then connect to the cloud, the save data gets uploaded. What happens to my offline save data? What if I don't connect to the internet again? Will I still have access to the save file?

This is an assumption but, based on the 360's cloud syncing, you should still have access to the save file. It should be copied to the cloud, not only saved on it.
 

MADGAME

Member
just asked albert about saving games.

If you are offline, games will save to the hdd and then when you are back online the saves will sync to the 'cloud'

How about this: your last session was online so save to cloud. Next login is offline...cloud is down, internet is out, no internet, whatever. DO I HAVE MY GAME SAVE?
 
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