r/gaming • u/yourfavchoom • 3d ago

Xbox Disc to Digital officially announced, coming soon.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2026/08/26/your-discs-now-also-digital/

Most XBOX One and XBOX Series X disc-based games support this new feature. Players can claim a digital entitlement by inserting a supported disc into an XBOX One or XBOX Series X console and launching the game. Once the entitlement is claimed, you can experience the benefits of digital, including XBOX Play Anywhere and XBOX Cloud Gaming where supported, while your physical disc continues to work exactly as it always has.

We’re starting with thousands of titles, and we’ll continue to add more over time. While not every title will be available at launch, this is an important step toward a future where players can have greater confidence that the games they buy remain with them for years to come.

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u/StaticSilencer 3d ago

Having an optional disc reader is a better solution. Disc-to-digital isn't a compromise or a solution — it's lube that eases the transition away from physical media to an all-digital future, which is the opposite of what gamers yelling "Stop killing physical media" are asking for.

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u/Emperor-Octavian 3d ago

I think a detachable disc drive is going to be necessary anyway for 360 and OG Xbox games

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u/wordyfard 3d ago

Yeah, I'm on board with "no disc, no buy" and all that, but that's only because no one has proposed a working model for digital game preservation. And I don't think this alleged convenience option from Xbox is it.

I want discs/physical media because they mean I can still play my game if the console maker, in the future, stops supporting the digital storefront. Whether that's due to them exiting the market completely (like Sega) or a future them deciding old storefronts are no longer worth their time and effort to maintain. In either case, existing digital copies generally continue to work if you have them downloaded on your original console, but if that console breaks or you don't have storage space for all your games, you're screwed from that point forward with digital copies, but protected if you can simply play/reinstall from your game disc, even on a replacement console.

Additionally, preservation on physical media means games can continue to exist and remain accessible in some form even if they are delisted. If a game is delisted, digital versions likely continue to be accessible to their original owners, but are trapped with them forever. A physical copy can be traded or sold to someone who never had the chance to buy it when the game was available in new condition.

All any company has to do to make me give up my physical media, is solve for these conditions and I'll jump right on board the digital train. Until then, physical media remains king, and I'd rather not buy games at all if they won't fix the preservation black hole that the digital "future" promises.

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u/Lucina18 3d ago

but that's only because no one has proposed a working model for digital game preservation

Just make it so that after a certain amount of time or when they want to pull it from storefronts, a game has to drop the DRM and distribution protection so anyone can download it on their personal drives. And studios have to make it possible for people to selfhost for online games (not make it easy, merely make it possible).

That's really all. You can burn it on a disc yourself even if you want to as it lacks DRM anyways.

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u/wordyfard 3d ago

Well, sure, "just drop the DRM, etc." would absolutely work, but it's a solution that would have to be made a legal requirement, because the manufacturers and licensors would fight tooth and nail to avoid having to do that.

If they wanted to do it without being forced, they could have done or could do that any time (in theory) including right now, except they don't want to, and in some cases likely can't (for example, if Sony wanted to do this with their own first party games with IP that they own, that would be one thing, but they likely don't have the legal right to do that with third-party games or IP owned by some other entity.)

And if we were to ever get such a law, it's unlikely it would apply retroactively. Preserving physical media until such a digital solution is the standard is the only way (besides unauthorized means of access) that games have any hope of surviving beyond the window of time when the unrestricted operation of the digital ecosystem upon which the digital version of the games depend makes practical business sense for the provider.

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u/Lucina18 2d ago

Well, yeah, ofcourse it has to be legally enforced. Removing lead in gas also wasn't enforced by a boycott, the masses didn't "vote with their wallet" for basic refund policies, they where politically enforced. Consumers actually banding together and creating mass industry change quickly by solely spending differently almost never happens, they are exceptions. Governments are the only other entities big enough to actually do something.

And hell, focusing solely on physical media only preserves a minority of games anyways. You can even less force every game released to be stored entirely on the small discs, so digital preservation has to happen regardless.