PSA: Update Game Consoles Before Giving Them for Christmas
The last thing you want on Christmas Day is for your kids to be unable to play the game console they’ve waited so long to enjoy. Read on as we highlight why you need to pre-game your console gift giving experience.
Why Do I Want To Do This?
If you’re not a gamer yourself, you might be curious as to why we’d recommend unpacking your child’s game console and setting it up just to turn right back around and repack it for them to open on Christmas Day.
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Unlike the game consoles of today the consoles of yesteryear, ranging from the early first-generation game consoles like the Magnavox Odyssey right up to fifth-generation consoles like the Sony PlayStation, had hard-coded firmware that rarely (if ever) received any update.
The Super Nintendo Entertainment System you bought back in the 1990s is still running the same operating code that it shipped with (and most likely still plugging along just fine despite 20 years of no updates). Game consoles were simply designed differently back then because there was no easy mechanism by which they could be updated.
Starting with the sixth-generation of game consoles and the introduction of over-the-network updates for the original Xbox game console suddenly updating your game console became a thing. That thing has proved to be persistent element of modern gaming and the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii, and Switch all feature over-the-network updates as do many handheld gaming platforms like newer versions of the Nintendo DS product line (so, in fact, the tips in this PSA also apply to portable game devices too).
Not only do the game consoles themselves need updates but the games we play on them need updates (and often need to be downloaded in the first place before we can even begin to update and play them).
