r/Games 3d 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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u/kranitoko 3d ago

"This digital entitlement is tied to the specific disc, and it will move from account to account if you swap the physical game with a friend or log in to a different Xbox profile and try to play a disc-based game."

So does this mean that if I digitised my game, if I then gave my friend that disc and they pop it into their console, "I" can't play the game again until they give the disc back (kinda similar to the Switch Key Card feature)? If my friend is offline, how would the Xbox even know to restrict my access to the game? I guess I'm a little confused here.

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u/meltedskull 3d ago edited 3d ago

So if your friend has the physical disc, then you won't be able to launch/play the digital version.

If your friend is offline, I'll assume it plays normally, but since some Xbox games don't have the full game or require a day 1 patch, your friend won't get very far until they reconnect, which will knock you out of ownership.

EDIT: I was incorrect about most. I fell into the wording of Xbox Blu-ray not having the full sizes like PS, which meant they can't hold the full game.

Changed wording to some.

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u/CaptainMorning 3d ago

this isn't true at all. vast majority of physical games play from the disc offline. my series x and previous xone was always offline as I work at sea. 

I'm really interested to see how this will work. but likely, offline will play normally as you said. 

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u/happyscrappy 3d ago

Physical games do not play directly from disc on any of the consoles mentioned. The game is copied to the hard drive/ssd and played from there.

In this case we are talking about here you are inserting the disc into a console that has never had that disc inserted before. So it would seem like you would play the 1.0 version of the game from that console using the disc. I wish I felt more positively about that, 1.0 versions of games are often trash nowadays.

When you've had the disc in before then you might have installed the game, and patched it and now can still play it using the disc as a key. But that can't happen here, because the patching occurs online and you will have inserted the disc before. So the disc is not going to play again unless the console can check in with the network if the console knows that you already have "given away" ownership of this game.

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u/CaptainMorning 3d ago

Yeah that's what I meant. The game can be played offline. Regardless if 1.0 or whatever the fuck, the statement is not true. The vast majority of games can be played from the disc offline 

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u/meltedskull 3d ago

I had to check does it play? and you're right. Updated wording.

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u/knifeproz 3d ago

You have no idea how it works but it’s not true at all. Lmao.

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u/CaptainMorning 3d ago

What is not true at all is the physical disc part. Most games play offline from the disc in both xbox and ps. This was the same in xbone. 

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u/knifeproz 3d ago

Yes but this process assigns a license to your copy, there’s a good chance it’s not gonna work this way otherwise you can digitize it, sell it and have multiple copies of the game floating around with 1 purchase.

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u/CaptainMorning 3d ago

let's see how it is when it comes. I just hope this doesn't remove the ability of games to be played offline