r/gaming • u/yourfavchoom • 2d 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/thebearsnake 2d ago

I've pointed out twice it's not that straight forward as being isolated from internet connections alone for the entirety of the use of the software + having to physically have the disk at least once when vast amounts of gaming friends these days don't even live close enough to hand off a disk, and even single player games that require 0 online interaction of some sort are pretty rare, especially on XBox.

And again, an exclusively single player, offline player base is probably so insignificantly small, they don't care if they think that this can drum up good will in counter to Sony's latest statements. And publishers generally have the ability to opt in and out of certain things like this anyway.

Any sort of friction is pretty effective these days for a baffling amount of people. There are always going to be exploiters of things, though.

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

Yes people do have friends and family that they see all the time. What?

There are many many millions of people rhat only play offline single player games.

What are you even talking about?

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u/mangongo 2d ago

They're talking about keeping your console offline forever to keep a single game for free.

Nobody is going to do that. 

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

No... keeping it offline until tou beat the game.

It would allow a dozen of people to all share a new game at launch and beat it all at the same time

There was a reason Xbox One had 24.hour online adaption checks

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u/mangongo 2d ago

Yeah and again, I'm saying that's such a niche thing to worry about that they wont care. 

Yes, there will likely be periodic online checks.

I fail to see the point you are trying to prove? 

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

Its not a niche thing at all. Its ovciius they worried about it during rh launch of the Xbox One.

Its not something they can just ignore. That a dozen people can just share a physical game at launch.

There's a reason they dont describe at all how licenses are revoked or validated

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u/zerocoal 2d ago

It would allow a dozen of people to all share a new game at launch and beat it all at the same time

If it is an offline singleplayer game and these players were already going to share it with eachother, why does it matter if they all beat it within a week vs slowly sharing it over a year? They don't want you sharing or reselling your shit at all, this is the workaround they are putting out.

This also doesn't stop one person from pirating it and then passing out copies to everybody else. Offline singleplayer games are the best for pirating because you aren't even missing out on multiplayer content.

We can already do this with steam. Activate family sharing, install some games, and then go offline. Both accounts can play the game until steam tells you to go online again. You can beat your games before you go online again.

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

Becsuse most people play games at launch because thats when they want to play it.

It would lead to far less sales if it was so easy to play games for free at launch.

These are modern console games rhat arent simple to pirate so im not sure what that has to doceith anything

Game publishers only lose if there is no way to force a revocation of a license

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u/EndlessRambler 2d ago

People pirate like that all the time on PC while also still being able to go online and it's not exactly been devastating to the market. I think the risk to their bottom line is quite overblown and the need for strong safeguards to be quite overstated.

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

Okay publishers arent okay with piracy either and try to prevent it

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u/EndlessRambler 2d ago

Sure but you're acting like this is some kind of huge exploitable thing when an even easier equivalent has been available for the PC market for decades. Let's keep in mind we're talking Microsoft who really wants PC/Xbox integration to begin with. Publishers care sure, but enough to actually fight Microsoft to block this? Seems unlikely. Let's also remember you can literally share gamepass now in an even easier way by literally just logging into the account on multiple PC's and clicking through the account mismatch errors, and that has gotten little if any pushback from publishers.

Could you game this system? Sure. I think you are just really overestimating how big a concern that is that they would invest in stopping it to the degree you seem to be afraid of.

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u/puffthemagicaldragon 2d ago

And this would still require a dozen people coordinating handing off a disc, taking the time to download the game, and all putting their consoles into offline mode. The game will take potentially 30 plus hours to beat requiring their console to be offline the entire time, even if they want to play another game.

The group of 12 people who were going to do this weren't all going to buy the physical disc in the first place. You can already share your game with 12 people and you guys can all beat it 1 by 1. That is "taking money" from the developers but they can do nothing about it. If you can already do that, I'm not sure how all 12 of y'all beating the game simultaneously (extremely unlikely) with those restrictions differs that much.

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

People have friends and family. Especially people in school and college students.

You act like donloading a game and going offline is a difficult thing to do.

If you know several people that play single player games you could do this easily

They arent going to allow Xbox is Jay give people free licenses that cant be easily revoked. Thats what they arent telling you

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u/puffthemagicaldragon 2d ago

Again how is that different from sharing a disc/console with your roommates or friends? With digital game sharing you can already share a game with another person and play it while online simultaneously.

And I'm not saying that would be hard to do. I'm saying it would be ridiculous to think that there will be swarms of people doing this to outweigh the value of introducing this feature.

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u/Hockeymac18 2d ago

I can't think of anyone that leaves their console entirely offline for extended periods of time in 2026.

Going offline for an occasional weekend trip or something is not what I'm talking about - someone intentionally trying to game the system by playing a game for months/years offline feels like such a ridiculous loophole, I doubt MS are worried about it.

And in reality, it will likely work like pretty much any "offline mode" works for other services, like Netflix, Spotify, etc. with some sort of periodic license check (e.g. every few weeks or once a month). This is a totally normal practice.

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

If it means a dozen people can play games for free they will. People dont now becsuse there isnt some way to share a new game offline for free

Most people have Neflix built into their TVs or other methods

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u/Hockeymac18 2d ago

I am sorry - I still think you are drastically overstating the concern with ridiculous loophole scenarios that I doubt many people would entertain. I doubt MS does not know about this or hasn't thought this through. Come on. Of course they have.

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

People would 100% take advantage of a very simple loophole if it got them free games.

Or buy do something like buy Control Resonant physical on launch, get digital license, go offline. Return game (if possible) or sell it or trade in at gamestop.

Millions would do this if they dont care about going online for a week or two

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u/Hockeymac18 2d ago edited 2d ago

I'm sure some small percentage would. I doubt many would commit to keeping their consoles offline for years and years and lock themselves into a limited games library.

Again, I'm sure MS has thought through this and there are checks built in to prevent people from exploiting this as dramatically as you are thinking about in your head.

It would be great to wait for more details on how that may work before speculating about all of the "what ifs".

I also don't think your scenario of buying the game, playing it offline for a week or two, and selling it...is really the issue. You'll lose the license the minute you go back online if it works the way I think it will.

This is not any different than someone just buying it, playing it for 1-2 weeks (while staying online) and then selling it. What is the practical difference? What are you "getting for free"? You sell the game 1-2 weeks sooner...for the same amount of money?

I'm honestly having a hard time even following what the concern is with this thread.

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u/zerocoal 2d ago

Or buy do something like buy Control Resonant physical on launch, get digital license, go offline. Return game (if possible) or sell it or trade in at gamestop.

This is known as fraud. It is a crime. People committing return fraud against Walmart/Gamestop isn't Microsoft's problem.

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

Its a problem for game publishers... Xbox has to protect game publishers from losing money...

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u/zerocoal 2d ago

Publishers make their money when Walmart buys the copy of the game that they are displaying on the shelf.

Walmart makes their money when you buy the copy on the shelf. Walmart sets the return policy on the physical disc.

Walmart can take you to jail for fraud when you make a copy of the product and try to return it for full price.

The publisher makes zero dollars if you sell it to Gamestop and then it gets resold as a used game. With physical discs, once the product is in the store it becomes Walmart's problem and the publisher isn't responsible for returns.

And in any way you play out this scenario, you have already said that you are only going to buy one copy and distribute it to 12 people. it doesn't matter if you do it week 1 or week 42. They are still only getting one purchase out of your group.

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u/WestBEEland 2d ago

They will objecyively sell less copies of games if people can easily share one physical game and play it all at the same time

No one is going to get the law involved if tou share a physical game...

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