Xbox Series X and S Boot Up 5 Seconds Faster Following Update

Gamers are about to get some of their valuable time back. 

Microsoft confirmed on Saturday that its Xbox Series X and Series S consoles will now boot faster thanks to a speedier startup animation. The changes improve boot times by 5 seconds.

Xbox’s director of integrated marketing Josh Munsee tweeted about the improvement over the weekend. 

Last-generation Xbox One consoles will speed up as well, according to Xbox senior product manager Jake Rosenberg, who tweeted: “Not only is the animation shorter, but Xbox One generation consoles are booting noticeably faster with these changes!”

Right now, these improvements are available to members of the Xbox Insider program. The program gives Xbox owners access to updates before they go live to the broader public.

Xbox Series X and S owners can set their consoles to two different standby modes. One is energy-saving, which turns off the console completely. The other is an instant-on mode, leaving the console on but at a low-energy state. Before the energy-saving mode change, the console bootup took 20 seconds, but the new update brought that down to 15. Instant-on, as the name suggests, would load up an Xbox almost instantly.

The company made improvements to energy-saving mode earlier this year, allowing gamers to download games in the background. Energy-saving mode also became the default option for owners setting up a new Xbox back in March.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization, said in a report last year that Xbox’s low-power standby mode would cost American owners an estimated $500 million in energy bills over the next five years. That’s the equivalent of a year’s worth of energy produced by a large 500-megawatt coal-burning power plant, adding 3 million tons of carbon to the atmosphere, according to the NRDC.

Microsoft declined to provide additional comment.