Sony has announced they are ditching physical media, and it looks like Microsoft are making similar plans for the future.
A report from The Verge states that Microsoft employees are testing a ‘disc-to-digital’ process that turns a copy of a physical game into the digital version, thus removing the need for physical media. If the game is also available on Game Pass or Play Anywhere you will also be able to access the game there, assuming you have the subscription.
The process is said to be tied to the disc, so you wouldn’t be able to transfer your game to digital and then pass the disc on to someone else to do the same. If you do pass on the game, it is reported that you will lose access to the digital version of the game when the next person installs it.
Some Xbox One games may not work with the new process, “It all depends on how and when the disc was manufactured and it may not have the features we need for this program,” is the warning being given to the testers.
This actually sounds pretty similar to what Microsoft had originally planned for the Xbox One, before fan backlash and Sony poking fun at them got them to reverse course on slapping DRM on their discs. The difference here would seem to be that there wouldn’t be a fee attached to sharing or selling on your game. Weird how this approach would actually get a lot of praise from gamers today…
This report comes in the wake of Sony announcing that they will stop manufacturing discs for PlayStation games in 2028 – this change doesn’t just affect first party games but all PlayStation releases. It means that the PS6 will almost certainly not have a disc drive, and if the console it going to be backwards compatible, Sony are going to have to work out something similar or annoy a whole bunch of gamers that have physical game collections.
Source: The Verge
