If you have managed to get your hands on Xbox Series X — or, more likely, Series S — you can eagerly start playing. But you know how it goes; There’s some work to be done before you can join. Here’s what you need to do (and an easier way to do it).
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Get started with the Xbox Mobile app
We talked about How useful is the Xbox Mobile app because the Android and iOS is when you have your control panel set up, but you won’t want to wait to install it. It’s also the easiest way to set up your new Xbox, as it allows you to enter your Wi-Fi password on your phone instead of using the controller and continue to customize your settings while the system downloads the copy. Update in the background.
When you first plug in your console, you’ll see a 10-character code that you can enter into the mobile app to continue setup. Once connected to Wi-Fi, the app guides you through choosing settings — like power saving mode, instant sign-in, or remote features like playing games from your phone’s console .
Add account and controller
The initial setup will require you to sign in to your Microsoft account to purchase and download games. But if multiple people use the same console, you can make sharing easier by assigning accounts to each controller. Then, when someone wants to use Xbox in their account, they just pick up the controller and start playing. (Don’t worry, you can easily swap profiles manually if your controller dies and you need to borrow someone else’s.)
To assign a new account to your other controllers, press the Xbox button, go to Configuration & system > Settings > Devices & connections > Accessories. Here you will see all the controllers that are paired with the system. Choose three-dot menu in the section you want to specify, select “Allocate…“And sign in to the Microsoft account of the person you want the controller ownership of.
Sync from your old console
For the most part, synchronizing data with your new dashboard is easy. As long as you’re signed in to your Xbox account on the old console, your game save data will sync with the new data. You will also be able to download games in your library.
However, some data may not be transferred. Some games don’t support saving to the cloud and there’s nothing you can do there. If you are missing data from a game, you can check to make sure the data has been backed up on your old console by highlighting the game, pressing the menu button and checking Manage games and add-ons. Also, if you want to transfer game save data from your older Xbox 360 for backwards compatible games, you can also do that, though you will need to enable it manually (and you’ll need an Xbox Live Gold subscription).
Enable (and Balance) 4K, HDR and 120 Hz
The new generation of consoles are those that can handle 4K, HDR, and 120 Hz games, sometimes all at once. Most TVs that support these features will automatically detect them, but you can check and enable them at Profile & system > Settings > General, if they don’t.
However, depending on the game you play, you might consider picking and choosing which of these features to enable. For example, playing 4K and 120 fps games can add massive processing demands, and on games that support ray tracing, the problem only got worse. Turning off one of these settings may improve the performance of the others. While some games will let you make this selection within the game itself, you can also limit your settings here if, for example, 60fps is enough for you.
Download your game (ASAP)
Once that’s settled, you can find all the games you’ve purchased in the My Games & Apps section of the console. But that’s not all you’ll find here. There are also links to find any games you’ve claimed via Xbox Live Gold and games you can download via Xbox Game Pass. If you have both subscriptions, you’ll have the widest selection of titles, but it can also be a bit of a pain to find everything you want to download.
You should get started as soon as you can because the download takes a long time. You may even want to open the console before you give it away to begin with. Most popular AAA games can be tens of gigabytes in size—Halo: Infinite, example is almost 50 GB for both multiplayer and campaign — their own. The last thing people want to do is spend their first day with the console waiting to download, so you can get started as soon as possible.
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