Xbox One owners finally got their hands on the free-to-play Pinball FX2 game today after a three-week delay to enable Xbox 360 table imports. However, some readers reported Pinball FX2 Xbox One table import problems when they tried to re-download their previous purchases.
Contrary to popular opinion, the issue isn’t a hobbled game. It can, however, require a clumsy workaround to import Pinball FX2 Xbox 360 tables to the Xbox One version. For the record, the table-import problems may not affect all players, though if it happens to you it can be incredibly confusing.
I was one such victim, having waited most of the work day to import for free the Pinball FX2 Star Wars Pinball tables I’d downloaded on Xbox 360 a long time ago. After downloading Pinball FX2 on Xbox One I was immediately prompted with the following message:
“Welcome to Pinball FX2 on Xbox One! Many of your Xbox 360 purchases can be imported to Xbox One at no cost! Please select the table you wish to import from the in-game menu and select the ‘Buy/Import Table’ option, at which point you will be taken to the store. If you have previously purchased the table, you will be given the option to ‘install’ it at no charge. Thank you for supporting Zen Studios.”
Easy enough, I thought. But then it wasn’t. After pressing the “Buy/Import Table” button no fewer than six times and still failing to see the tables show-up in my Xbox One interface, I was beginning to wonder whether those reader grumblings were correct. Maybe the game wasn’t working as Zen Studios intended.
Whether or not it was operating to plan, Zen did share a workaround if the tables don’t seem to automatically import for you.
According to Zen, it can take a few minutes for tables to queue in the system, and then up to 10 minutes to actually appear in the interface. It’s not that the content hasn’t downloaded, it’s just that it’s not appearing in the GUI and thus can’t be installed and activated.
To fix this, go to the “My Games & Apps” section of the Xbox One interface and select “Pinball FX2.” Press the Menu Button and select “Manage Game.” If you scroll to the far right of the screen you’ll see a list of any tables you’d previously told the game to import. Presumably those items will appear under the “Ready to Install” header.
If they do, simply select all the tables and choose “install.” The next time you go into the Pinball FX2 main menu on Xbox One, the icons for those now-imported tables will appear in full color and be playable.
After successfully importing the table I did notice one nice new feature. The original Star Wars Pinball tables — the only ones I have at the moment (I’d love more!) — have the standard single-player option as well as a split-screen option enabling two people to play at once on separate tables. If you choose this option the screen splits vertically so the action’s easier to follow. It’s a great feature, and though it can be tough to focus on your table if there’s a lot of on-screen animation going on, it’s bound to see lots of attention.