It's been attempting to bring forth the all-digital age for quite a while (remember the Xbox One's launch anyone?), and the latest proof is the plan for an all-digital Xbox Series X refresh that was leaked via court documents earlier this week.
They'll most likely have a disc version aswell or maybe there's an expansion port on the bottom of the new round Xbox Series X that you can add a round disc expansion to. It's to early to get rid of physical media in my opinion like a lot seem to think on N4G but it depends on what Microsofts data is, it could be there's only 15% of owners of Series X actually using physical media.
It could also be potential customer in shitty internet areas see ms for what they are trying to do(destroy physical) and don't buy xbox due to that. Could you imagine downloading a ff7 remake on slower internet then spectrum(road runner if it's still called that)
So customers in shitty internet areas just stuck to 2 generations ago due to something that I believe for the most part is out of their hands. Sounds like a dick move period. Options are the answer but for some reason people want to dislike physical cause ms told you to. What does physical do that's so negative , why does it bother some, why can't they coexist? Cause ms said so?
Options are always prefer especially for collectors but that being said.
All physical copies of games from every platform are all the same, they all get day one patches. No modern game in about the last 15 years have shipped complete and bug free. PC gamers have been practically digital for almost 2 decades and they don't cry this much and they are the majority of gamers in the WORLD.
People need to stop using rural communities with crap or no internet as an excuse because if you do live in places like that then I'm pretty sure they don't really care as much about it as internet trolls that use that excuse, like they really care about other people. I used to own a farm in the middle of no where and playing games was the last thing on my mind.
Humans are selfish and only pretend to care about others of it benefits them in some way or another.
The slide says that the current Series X is gonna be EOL just as the disc-less version launches. That means, if there's no drive attachment, that they'll be only digital consoles in production from next year
Series S seemed like a bad move since the beginning. Now it looks like a carefully planned good move disguised as a bad move, so MS can achieve their dream of all digital consoles sooner. If SS had the same specs as SX but without the disc drive, they likely would've been forced to wait until the next generation before they could start forcing a discless console again.
At this point, I would think most Xbox owners are relying on Gamepass, so that could also explain the low sales on physical for that console.
I know physical is slowly going away, but I want to have it as I still buy a mixture of physical/digital media (I just bought Pokemon Violet and ToTK physicals on Switch, got a good deal on them too).
All companies want to get rid of it. Only a matter of time. In related news this is the last month I'll be getting my red envelopes from Netflix's DVD.com, as that service is shutting down.
wow... what a holdout you are. I stopped doing their discs by mail a long time ago. When they stopped getting new releases and enforced a 28 day delay on them (as directed by the studios). I do still use their streaming but I never use discs anymore. Unless its a nice special edition of a movie i really want to own.
I know, you'd think I was a technical Luddite lol Even with the delay I'd get relatively new movies for about $2.50 a pop, and BluRay is actually pretty comparable to streaming "4K" (not UHD obviously). I'm like the last person I know that uses it.
Another holdout here. I liked it because if I wanted to see a movie, unless it was exclusive to some streaming service and never got a disc, I'd be able to watch it and it's all in one place. It just wasn't instant. Now if I want to watch something I'll have to dig around to find out which services have it, have a ton of different accounts and figure out where it's cheaper. Looking forward to that last drop of 10 discs, but I see people are going after certain kinds of movies, so a bunch of them are now "long wait" so I probably won't get any of those.
Me too. They said "up to" 10 so no guarantees I guess. Did you get that PDF generated that shows your history with them? That was a really nice touch imo. They're really going out in style
I will say, I do miss the days of getting discs and ripping them to my PC. That was back before the Bluray discs though. And a Bluray PC drive was cost prohibitive at the time. Cheap DVD-R were easy to come by and I could play those in just about anything. Especially when my kids were young and into watching movies, I'd rather them scratch up a copy than the real thing.
But when they started streaming... things changed. I still have the boot discs for Wii and PS3 (360 had a native app).
I actually miss going down to the video rental store with the family, we'd get a few movies, I'd rent a game and we'd have movie nights over the next few nights, it was a nice feeling. Same as when you went with friends or their families back in the day and pick out movies.
So far yes, but look at the clues. Digital PS5 is $100 cheaper. Is the drive really $100? Yes they're not suggesting doing away with the option yet.. as long as they fear customer outrage.
Damn! I haven't gotten a physical dvd rental from Netflix since like 2010 or 2011. I wonder if Gamefly will simply turn into an online store for physical and digital games. Maybe even starting up something similar to Steam.
Its unavoidable when you see something like 70% of game sales are digital. The physical media is more of a key than it is the actual game. Especially if games are shipping incomplete and you have to go online to get the remainder.
We live in an always online world now... more so than ever before and its only going to keep going in that direction. Convenience is a hell of a drug... even more than nostalgia.
This whole “all physical is just a key” line going around is just not true…some games are but not all, it’s just people trying to justify the digital only future as in “just give up and give in”
Developers should be doing better so we don’t need day one updates, it can be done it’s just they know it’s now the accepted norm so they don’t have to try.
You're using an extremely general metric without proper context. Those digital game sales can include mobile games, for instance, which are not all that relevant to people who game on console or PC. If we are to look at PC, unlike the Big 3 which each only have one centralized store, the platform has a wide variety of storefronts to choose from. A few of them even sell games without digital rights management which scratches the ownership itch similarly to physical media.
That's what surprised me when I got back into PC gaming, I didn't realize back then that there was almost nothing on the disc, it was just a key to unlock the game on Steam more or less. I think that might have been the Home World collection I first bought back then. It's sad that I can't have a collection of cases sitting on my dvd/book case when I buy PC games, it looks like it's mostly eroge that actually have physical PC copies these days.
none of what you said is wrong... i totally agree that they should be better. Should being the key word. one thing though is that while yes there are some who pride themselves on shipping a complete package, they are getting fewer and far between. its mostly the indies now who do that or outfits like SLG and LRG who take the digital product and turn it into a physical one.
But the trend of just putting the bare minimum on the media and having to go online for the rest is not going away any time soon. If anything we are starting to see fewer and fewer physical releases even from big companies. Especially when it comes to special / collectors editions.
They'll most likely have a disc version aswell or maybe there's an expansion port on the bottom of the new round Xbox Series X that you can add a round disc expansion to.
It's to early to get rid of physical media in my opinion like a lot seem to think on N4G but it depends on what Microsofts data is, it could be there's only 15% of owners of Series X actually using physical media.
All companies want to get rid of it. Only a matter of time.
In related news this is the last month I'll be getting my red envelopes from Netflix's DVD.com, as that service is shutting down.
It’s 2013 but rather than an in your face approach they’ve been doing their original plan but surgically…slowly over time until you don’t even notice.
They want streaming, the want cloud gaming, they want Gamepass.