14 DAY TRIAL // The Xbox One's announced pre-download feature is apparently being put to use a month ahead of schedule, according to the official Xbox website.
The pre-download feature will arrive a month early, starting with Madden NFL 15, due for release on August 26 in North America and August 29 in Europe. Madden NFL 15 will be the first Xbox One game to make use of the feature, according to the listing on the Xbox website.
The pre-download feature was announced by Microsoft at Gamescom last week, stipulating that Forza Horizon 2 and FIFA 15 would be the first two Xbox One titles to support downloads in advance, when they come out in late September.
"Xbox one game expected to release on 8/26/2014. You may download the game from Xbox Live before then, but it will not be playable until 12:01am PDT / 3:01AM EDT on the release date," reads the official Xbox.com profile for Madden NFL 15.
The pre-download feature allows gamers who pre-ordered the game to download the client to their Xbox One hard drive ahead of time, in order to be able to jump straight into the action on day one, without having to wait for the download to finish, avoiding queues and potential network difficulties.
When you place an order on Xbox Live, you will receive the encrypted files, which will be unlocked for play at midnight on the day of launch. You won't however be able to play the games ahead of time.
In further Madden NFL 15 news, fans all across the world expressed their discontent regarding publisher EA Sports' decision for the early version of the American football video game to only be playable for six hours on Electronic Arts' new EA Access program.
EA Access is a subscription-based program launched earlier this month on the Xbox One platforms, allowing members to play select EA titles and download new EA releases up to five days before their official release dates and take them for a spin, and many expected to get full five days of gameplay time.
EA mentioned that each and every game would have a different approach to early access on its subscription program, and also said that more games would become available in The Vault, and that added titles wouldn't be removed later on no matter what.
For the time being, EA Access offers subscribers the chance to play Madden NFL 25, FIFA 14, Battlefield 4 and Peggle 2.
Sony mentioned that EA Access wouldn't come to the PlayStation 4, as it did not offer the same value that PS4 customers were accustomed with through PlayStation Plus.
Madden NFL 15 is coming to the PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Xbox 360 and Xbox One platforms.