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Cheaper, Disc-Free Xbox One Coming Next Year, Report Says (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Microsoft is planning to release a disc-free version of the Xbox One as early as next spring, according to an unsourced report from author Brad Sams of Thurrott.com (who has been reliable with early Xbox-related information in the past). The report suggests the disc-free version of the system would not replace the existing Xbox One hardware, and it would instead represent "the lowest possible price for the Xbox One S console." Sams says that price could come in at $199 "or lower," a significant reduction from the system's current $299 starting price (but not as compelling compared to $199 deals for the Xbox One and PS4 planned for Black Friday this year). Buyers will also be able to add a subscription to the Xbox Games Pass program for as little as $1, according to Sams. For players who already have games on disc, Sams says Microsoft will offer a "disc to digital" program in association with participating publishers. Players will be able to take their discs into participating retailers (including Microsoft Stores) and trade them in for a "digital entitlement" that can be applied to their Xbox Live account.
They're setting a plan in motion that will end physical game purchases entirely and move consumers to 100% downloaded/streamed content.
This sounds like a great way to begin to get rid of the console used game market.
There's no way getting rid of the blu-ray player in an xbox saves Microsoft $100. What it does do is create a level of consumer that can no longer engage in the used game market.
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And a significant percentage of repair/warranty problems come from hard to read discs and malfunctioning drives. Eliminating both of those issues should save them a great deal of money.
What else are they removing?
The ability to buy and sell second hand games on the used market.
They also don't provide refunds on digital purchases except where the law forces them to, aka not most of the USA.
Physical goods are required to allow this, and most large retailers will do so for longer than required.
Bullsh*t. Used games are not a thing anymore, just perpetrated by a vocal minority.
Because "The PC Master Race" has gotten over this years ago - after all, stores like Steam make it much hard to "resell" games (some people do elaborate "make a new account for 1 game" and sell it on eBay thing, but that's a rather big PITA).
Plus, both Sony and Microsoft are big into the "Day 1 Digital" or even "Early Digital Release" in their game stores. And in fact, it's been shown the digital game sales outweigh the physical sales by a large amount - not only do you often get to play a weekend ahead of release, but you don't have to line up and pick up a disc only to download another disc's worth of day 1 patches. (or larger - Fallout 76 was apparently a 45GB game on disc, with a required patch of 52GB. WTF?).
And the stores know it too - I don't think I've seen ads for midnight store openings for a big game release in a long while. There used to be plenty - every big AAA game would have a midnight release party. Now people just wait at home for it to unlock. The biggest thing that's happened in recent memory was Best Buy offering to break a street date on Battlefield - they were going to sell it to you a day early so you could go and download the patch and be ready for it to unlock the next day.
Hell, Microsoft tried to promote used digital game sales in the initial Xbox One release, but everyone hated that, so now we're struck with a model that doesn't allow it, in either store. And Sony's "Yes you can give it to someone else" thing worked, it only lasted a couple of years before they too were heavily into the promotion of digital downloads. (Except of course, they didn't have to worry about Microsoft offering used digital game sales as a competitive factor).
And in the practical end, I also learned by the time the used games came into reasonable prices at the store, you could just pick up the game on sale either new or via a store sale.
It's a romantic thought. Really, it is. But physical sales are down through the industry - movies and music are now almost all digital sales with few physical sales (despite physical offering better quality, the convenience of not going to the store beats quality, or even getting it through Amazon - digital means not having to find the disc). PC games have embraced digital for at least a decade now. It's basically inevitable. I don't know what people with poor internet connections do, because they generally are also in places where they can't get to Best Buy to buy the discs easily enough.