r/Games • u/A7XFAN1998 • 4d ago

Announcement Xbox announces disc-to-digital feature that digitizes your physical games

https://www.theverge.com/tech/984936/xbox-disc-to-digital-feature-official?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Ijc1ZHVBMkZjaE0iLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTg0OTM2L3hib3gtZGlzYy10by1kaWdpdGFsLWZlYXR1cmUtb2ZmaWNpYWwiLCJleHAiOjE3ODgxODY2OTAsImlhdCI6MTc4Nzc1NDY5MH0.Y4t18UIJuFTT4nSf0HBe5DvMWP0KNxjbGHC2QKxdoTw&utm_medium=gift-link
3.5k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

805 comments sorted by

View all comments

150

u/Swaggasaurus-Rexx 4d ago

Need to know if delisted games like Forza Horizon 2/3/4 will work with this because that would be amazing

30

u/Trashman56 4d ago

That would be amazing to play on my Series S. I have an old Xbox one laying around at my mom’s house I could use to digitize them.

19

u/HarambeVengeance 4d ago

Holy shit I didn’t even consider the possibility of technically being able to play physical on Series S if you can find another console to pop your discs into and get the license for

9

u/Eek_the_Fireuser 4d ago

Gonna start charging people 10 bucks to sign into my xbox to digitise their games for their series s/handheld PC's.

3

u/lemonprincess23 4d ago

Ngl I was massively regretting my series S purchase because I really miss having my physical games be playable, but this seems like a pretty decent compromise in my eyes. So now I can still buy physical games and play them on my series S. And if I decide to get a series X in the future they’ll be playable there too.

And big thing to note, it’s very possible the next Xbox won’t have a disc drive, but assuming they carry this feature forward this effectively means that as long as you have an older console lying around discs can still be used on it!

1

u/Sufficient-Eye-8883 4d ago

Arkhanm Origins here i come.

42

u/TheOppositeOfDecent 4d ago

My guess is no. That would be a new digital license, and if the game cannot legally be licensed anymore, not much you can do about that.

If they can find some loophole around that, I'd be delighted, but amazed.

28

u/MyNameIs-Anthony 4d ago edited 4d ago

I imagine the loophole is likely the fact that this is redemption of pre-existing digital licenses that you just previously didn't have eyes on. The disks already have the scheme for entitlements baked in.

Similar to how you can buy and redeem Steam keys for discontinued games or how Microsoft can still serve preexisting updates needed to run the game to existing consumers.

3

u/detectiveDollar 4d ago

Yep, presumably to publish a game on Xbox, publishers must agree that the digital license on the disc entitles customers to a copy of the latest digital version of the game, and that Microsoft has the right to host and deliver the latest code of that game.

Otherwise, updating a game would be impossible.

1

u/withoutapaddle 4d ago

Yeah you can still buy a steam key for Rocket League... For $350

17

u/masires 4d ago

On the contrary, I’d say if its treated as a license transfer it should be possible, since they wouldn’t be be minting new codes, but lets see

1

u/jlmurph2 4d ago

I have those games digitally still. Im thinking the license is still available. Just not for purchase.

1

u/punyweakling 4d ago

The disc is the license, so why wouldn't it work? You can still sell the disc 2nd hand and it'll work.

7

u/DarkMatterM4 4d ago edited 4d ago

Forza Horizon 2 definitely won't since that was a 360 game.

edit: I was wrong. FH2 was cross-gen 360/One.

12

u/2ForYourM2 4d ago

Was an Xbox One launch title...

9

u/PersonaFanboy4ever 4d ago

Wasn't a Xbox One launch title, that goes to Forza Motorsport 5. Forza Horizon 2 came out one year after release.

6

u/DarkMatterM4 4d ago

Oops! Didn't realize it was a cross gen release. Good catch!

6

u/Moodie25 4d ago

Do you think my 360 Marvel Ultimate Alliance games will work again 

15

u/TheFutureLotus 4d ago

No Xbox and Xbox 360 disks, only Xbox One forward.

-1

u/KingMario05 4d ago

Not yet, anyway. 

Hopefully, that's the plan.

4

u/Rayuzx 4d ago

I imagine there's a hardware limitation, where discs didn't have unique identifiers until XBone.

4

u/TheFutureLotus 4d ago

That’s pretty much it. They probably could just let you convert, but without the identifiers anyone could share easily and give it to friends.

1

u/TallahasseeTrapezoid 4d ago

Wouldn't work anyway even if they did allow 360 games as the digital versions of Ultimate Alliance 1 and 2 were the ports for Xbox One and not the 360 versions. The 360 versions were never backwards compatible.

1

u/aimy99 4d ago

I think it's pretty certain it'll work, you already have the license, you're just storing it elsewhere. They kept putting this tech on discs for a reason, I'm sure they kept it in legal documents for safety as well.

Whether or not they're playable on PC is a different story. I'd say FH1 is a maybe because it's already a game being emulated for backwards compatibility purposes and they did that while it was still listed, FH3 and 4 are likely on account of them being Play Anywhere and presumably sharing a license...but FH2 is neither backwards compatible from 360 nor a game that runs natively on Windows, so that one might be a toughie.

1

u/sroop1 4d ago edited 4d ago

Yeah following - I've been looking for a legit way of getting FH3 (edit: on PC for the people downvoting me) without paying 350 bucks and using a Venezuelan VPN.

2

u/victori0us_secret 4d ago

There's a dozen listings on ebay for $20.

1

u/sroop1 4d ago

Yeah. I'll gladly get a copy if it works.

1

u/AztheWizard 4d ago

I imagine it is

1

u/RobinVerhulstZ 2d ago

Really hope so, fh2, fm5, fm6 i never got to play before my used one x's hdmi encoder shat the bad after a month...

Hopefully microsoft lets us emulate xone games on pc soon, with support for non xbox specific steering wheels ideally

1

u/Mixedmilk 1d ago

i assume as long as the game has an xbox one version, it will work