An Xbox One without a blu-ray drive will launch early next year according to “people familiar with the company’s plans.” The new console will only support digital downloads and streaming, and it is expected the console will be at least $100 cheaper than current devices.
It is also reported that there will also be a ‘disc-to-digital’ program which will allow owners of boxed games to trade them in for the digital version at participating stores.
Whilst we’ve heard rumours of similar consoles before, from both Microsoft and Sony, but it does seem to be the right time for such a device, many people have swapped to digital only and Microsoft are about to start pushing their new streaming services.
The report comes from Paul Thurrot, a technology journalist, and has been picked up by a few respected industry sites giving credence to the report.
Would you buy a disc-less Xbox One? Let us know in the comments!
Source: Thurrot
ron_mcphatty
Does the Xbox one come with a 4K drive? If so, one without seems like a sensible budget option. If not, it’s another pointless exercise in manufacturing more stuff!
Stefan L
It does. Both One S and One X come with a UHD Blu-ray drive, so for the lower end it would help trim about $30 off the BOM, before starting to consider how the console itself can be packaged in a more compact manner and the associated savings there.
camdaz
Just what I said on Friday :)
Any news on size of HDD? It will need to be a fair bit bigger than what’s in now.
Steviepunk
I’m guessing they will stick with 1TB if cost saving is their aim. 1TB will do be enough to allow most casual gamers to have a reasonable number of games installed, and if they need more space then adding an external HDD is a cheaper option that the premium Microsoft would charge for an extra TB of storage.
In the UK, the 2TB One S model was around £50 more than the 1TB model – for £50 you can get a 2TB external HDD (and still have your internal 1TB drive), so much better value for people to do that anyway.
Also wondering if next year will be the time for a new Elite Xbox (based on the X), with SSD prices having fallen to much recently, must be getting to the point of having a X with a 1TB SSD instead.
Eldave0
Good call. It’s been years since I’ve bought a game physically (what’s the point when there is typically a big day one update waiting for you anyway?) so a digital-only option makes sense.
I’m still in the market for an Xbox One X (assuming the PS5 is still 2+ years away) so I might grab one of these if it saves £50 or so.
Paulo Vinicius Radtke
I guess most people will be thrilled to be get closer to a digital collection as on Steam. From a collector’s perspective, this really sucks. I don’t mind paying dirty cheap for a PC game that may not be supported/available in a few years, just for the sake of playing it. Paying retail for a game that may disappear, and is not tradable nor resalable, is a whole different story. If the Wii digital store phasing out is a cautionary tale, this would be a good moment to shout to the industry.