The Xbox One launches tonight, but reports are coming in that you may want to avoid doing its mandatory software update via USB. First reported by Joystiq, yet now mysteriously absent from Microsoft‘s own support website, the USB update is apparently a multiple-step process filed under “emergency offline update,” as opposed to simply connecting your Xbox One to the Internet.
If you do decide to go the USB route because, let’s face it, Xbox LIVE will probably be flooded over the next 24 hours, then you’ll need to do to the following:
1) Have a USB stick at least 2GB in space, formatted to NTFS.
2) Turn on your Xbox One and find out which version of the system’s OS you have.
3) Go to the Xbox Support webpage, and download whichever compressed update matches your OS. Put that on your USB stick.
4) I’m not kidding here — turn off your Xbox One, unplug it, leave it that way for 30 seconds, then “hold the bind and eject buttons while turning the system on.”
5) Hold for about 15 seconds until you hear two tones, then let go of the buttons. Then the console does the rest.
Also, keep in mind that since the console doesn’t release until midnight, you won’t even be able to tell what OS you have until then… so you’re probably better off just connecting online (if you can).
**UPDATE, 11:13am (CST)** Never mind, now you can’t even do it. You’ll have to connect to Xbox LIVE.
Sources: Xbox Support, Joystiq
