PSA: If you’re gifting gaming hardware for Christmas, think about updating it first

The best part of Christmas: waiting for clogged servers!

It’s Christmas time, and that means it’s the season of giving…and getting! I assume some of you out there are gifting hardware to relatives or immediate family members, and with modern hardware comes a certain degree of responsibility. Yep, updates! reminded me of something really important: consider updating your hardware before you gift it.

Often times, Christmas day servers explode with demand

I think it was the 3DS era that I started thinking about updating gifts ahead of time. It had gotten to the point where nearly everything needed a hefty amount of firmware updates: on top of game updates. I think the worst experience I’ve ever had with this was updating my PS3 after a long hiatus. The PSN would take hours to download each update, and would turn around and download an update on top of that update. It was exhausting, and would just leave it running all day.

As an extra tip: if your console comes with a free game like Mario Kart, consider updating that too. Or as a matter of fact, consider updating any game you’re gifting. With few exceptions (like The Witcher 3 fitting on one Switch cart), many games require hug🐬e updates to even play, which could mean wait times, or bugged out servers preventing someone from downloading a crucial day one patch.

Of course, you could also leave it to the giftee to do it, especially if you’re aiming to give them a sealed copy. It’s your choice!