This is one approach to preserving physical game purchases in an increasingly digital future.
Very soon after Sony announced its plan to kill off PlayStation game discs, it was reported that Xbox is working on a way for its players to play digital copies of their physical games. According to The Verge, Xbox started testing this disc-to-digital program for Xbox One and Xbox Series X titles recently. Unfortunately, the project will seemingly not cover games for the original Xbox or Xbox 360. It may not support every Xbox One game either, per the report.
It seems this approach means you won’t need to keep a disc in your Xbox to play the respective game. The program is said to bond a digital version of a game to its physical disc. Put the disc in another Xbox and the digital copy will follow suit to an account linked to that system.
That would prevent players from installing a game then passing the disc off to a friend so they can both play the same title from a single physical copy. Crucially, it would also mean players can still trade in their games.
You’ll reportedly be able to stream a game via this program (as you already can with digital game purchases) if it’s compatible with Xbox Cloud Gaming and you’re a Game Pass member. The program is also said to support Xbox Play Anywhere for PC and handhelds.
It may be a while yet before Xbox talks up the disc-to-digital program in public, especially if its employees (who certainly have other things on their mind with mass layoffs expected to take place imminently) have just started testing it. The Verge suggests Xbox might officially announce it in the coming months.
Xbox hasn’t exactly been terrible with game preservation. Xbox Series X/S systems support backward compatibility for every single game that runs on Xbox One (except for those requiring Kinect), going all the way back to titles for the brand’s original console. As it stands, the disc-to-digital program would ensure that Xbox owners would still be able to access at least some of their physical game purchases on future hardware. It could mitigate the scourge of disc rot too.
It’s not yet clear whether the next Xbox, aka Project Helix, will have a disc drive. However, like PlayStation, Xbox has laid the groundwork for an all-digital future. The Xbox Series S does not have a disc drive, and there’s an all-digital version of the Series X. It wouldn’t be surprising at all to see Xbox follow PlayStation’s lead by ditching discs entirely, but Microsoft isn’t likely to announce that right now — Not while players are up in arms about Sony’s earth-shattering news. Xbox will take any shred of positive sentiment it can get ahead of the division’s expected restructuring.
