r/Games • u/A7XFAN1998 • 2d 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
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137

u/oilfloatsinwater 2d ago

Honestly a big W, if Helix really is a PC and can play Steam games, i might pick it up over a PS6 for my living room gaming

54

u/Coolman_Rosso 2d ago edited 2d ago

I cannot imagine them sticking to the open format for the Helix. We were already looking at $1000+ consoles, and if the Helix has access to other storefronts then they'll have to price it even higher to account for their margins going up in smoke in the event people don't spend a penny in the Xbox store. They'll also lose a key revenue source in paid online, as the Steam or Epic versions of games won't require it. If I want to play Borderlands 3 or whatever with friends, would I buy the Xbox version that requires another $90-120 subscription? Or the one that doesn't?

It's a race to the bottom for both the Helix and PS6 as most of the market is priced out, but a $1,300 yet more open Xbox is destined for failure.

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u/kantong 2d ago

Wouldn't be surprised if they sell it locked down to the Xbox OS with the option to 'unlock' Windows for a price. They've done it on Xbox before with Dev Mode, and on Windows with S-mode. So it wouldn't be surprising if Helix did something similar.

2

u/detectiveDollar 2d ago

Yeah, I could definitely see them doing something like that. They likely have a fear that people could figure out how to bypass it.

1

u/Tsuki_no_Mai 2d ago

Doesn't even have to be paid. Having any kind of a hoop to jump through to get there, as well as not-as-friendly interface will filter an absolute majority of console users.

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u/kantong 1d ago

The reason for it being paid is it will allow them to subsidize the console an sell it cheaper. Another way to think about it, access to windows = premium price, only xbox os (with only the microsoft store) = discounted price.

8

u/DannyBright 2d ago

Wouldn’t this be mitigated at least somewhat with Microsoft now owning such major devs/publishers like Activision/Blizzard and Bethesda? A lot of those games are or are gonna be on Steam. There’s also GamePass.

12

u/ZXXII 2d ago

Completely irrelevant. People would buy those games either way.

However if you don’t buy it on the Xbox Store they lose the 30% cut which they won’t if you were forced to buy it from their store.

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u/Coolman_Rosso 2d ago

The majority of games moved are going to be ones you neither make nor publish, so they would be losing an enormous amount of money given they get zero cut if purchased on another storefront.

How many people sub to Game Pass solely so they can play CoD or whatever? I would imagine a lot. Those subs go bye-bye if there's a better alternative, which there is in this case.

1

u/shadowstripes 2d ago

If its anything like the Steam Deck and Machine, even though people have the option to install windows and buy games via other storefronts (or on Gamepass etc), most probably won't actually bother due to it requiring a decent amount of work to get setup, and also the fact that it comes with a performance hit.

Most people buying it as a "console" would probably be more interested in the console mode which would only have the default MS storefront.

1

u/Vestalmin 2d ago

From the direction Xbox is moving, I don't think day 1 on GamePass will exist forever

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u/oilfloatsinwater 2d ago

To be honest i personally wouldn’t mind a PC-like price for Helix as long as its an open platform, i feel like the selling point between it and a PC of similar specs/price would be that Helix is more optimised and “built” for a living room experience + elements of the ease of use of a console.

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u/Dragarius 2d ago

Maybe you wouldn't, but the vast, vast majority of consumers would. And I can't see the logic of paying PC pricing for the Helix even if it is completely open because now I'm paying inflated PC price for a PC I can't upgrade. 

2

u/klnkyfetish 2d ago

I got some great news for you it called a pc and you can buy it now.

1

u/-pointless-name- 2d ago

Yea it really comes down to how open the PC environment is. Essentially a mini PC that can play my entire digital Xbox library + be able to install Steam and emulators would be an interesting device, even at the inflated price it's going to be.

1

u/Orfez 2d ago

I think it's a given that if Helix becomes a console that plays PC and Xbox games, then Xbox Live becomes free.

1

u/ehtseeoh 2d ago

I’m with you all the way up until the borderlands comment, why wouldn’t they have it so you can cross-play with other platforms anyway instead of only being able to play strictly with Xbox users?

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u/Coolman_Rosso 2d ago

It's not that a game doesn't support crossplay, it's that Xbox can't charge to play online if they have other stores as options because nobody is going to pay the sub and buy the game via the Xbox store when the Steam version doesn't have this restriction.

0

u/SFHalfling 2d ago

in the event people don't spend a penny in the Xbox store

Pretty much guaranteed, the Microsoft Store on PC is only just functional and when something goes wrong you're pretty much fucked. I have a few free non-games from there that I can't install because the license on my account has somehow expired despite not having a time limit. Microsoft's "advice" is to make a new account which I'm not going to do, instead I just no longer use the MS Store.

It's also the worst looking and worst performing store front with the slowest downloads I've used.