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Cheaper, Disc-Free Xbox One Coming Next Year, Report Says (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the disc-to-digital dept.

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.

15 of 75 comments (clear)

  1. What else are they removing? by qzzpjs · · Score: 2

    There is no way that removing a $10 bluray player would reduce the cost of the machine by $100.

    1. Re:What else are they removing? by RickyShade · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They're setting a plan in motion that will end physical game purchases entirely and move consumers to 100% downloaded/streamed content.

    2. Re:What else are they removing? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:What else are they removing? by dissy · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:What else are they removing? by tlhIngan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

    5. Re:What else are they removing? by drinkypoo · · Score: 2

      Bullsh*t. Used games are not a thing anymore, just perpetrated by a vocal minority.

      Poppycock. Used games are very much a thing. Retrogaming seems to have a steady popularity these days, probably just because it's retro but possibly also because it doesn't have any of these problems.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  2. Physical, or GTFO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I don't own an Xbox One, but contemplating it for Red Dead Redemption 2. I want to buy a physical copy that I can still play in the next decade, potentially on another console if mine fails. When those servers are decommissioned, say bye to your games.

    I know that's the way the industry is heading. Easier to milk the $$$ if you licence and don't own the game.

    One of the reasons I still like playing on my older consoles. Just brought an AV cable this month for my Sega megadrive and dreamcast.

    1. Re:Physical, or GTFO by mentil · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The Xbox Live service is the ONLY reason the Xbox division is profitable. The hardware is a massive loss leader for the Xbox Live Gold service (sure they're not sold at a loss anymore, but factor in marketing and exclusivity deals). Those servers aren't getting decommissioned until the Xbox division is completely dead, in which case you'll be playing version 1.0 single-player software on unsupported hardware. PC (even emulation) is a safer bet.

      --
      Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
  3. Sounds like a great way to get rid of used games by skam240 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
  4. Good luck DLing anything on 10 GB/mo by tepples · · Score: 2

    The ability to buy and sell second hand games on the used market.

    And the ability to make use of the console at all in areas where the best available Internet connection is slow and/or harshly capped, especially rural areas that rely on satellite or fixed cellular. How practical is it to drive a console and monitor into town to complete a download in the tens of gigabytes over public library Wi-Fi? (I didn't think so.) Andy Tanenbaum's "station wagon full of tapes" argument was one of consoles' biggest remaining advantage over Steam, and a console without a disc drive erases that.

    1. Re:Good luck DLing anything on 10 GB/mo by dissy · · Score: 5, Informative

      And the ability to make use of the console at all in areas where the best available Internet connection is slow and/or harshly capped

      Pretty much. And to keep everything in context, that has been Microsoft's plan for the Xbox One since before its launch.

      Many have forgotten, but the E3 prior to the consoles release, it was going to require "always on" internet connectivity to even launch a single player game, let alone actually need the network for anything.
      They were also going to put unique keys in with discs for use in locking a game to your hardware and prevent reselling. A used game without an unused key would be useless, and require the purchase of a new key at full retail price (on top of whatever you paid for that used plastic disc)

      https://www.theverge.com/2013/6/12/4422014/xbox-360-is-offline-alternative-to-xbox-one

      Xbox chief Don Mattrick offered up his own thoughts on the Xbox One online requirement ahead of Microsoft's E3 keynote,

      "Fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity, it's called Xbox 360," says Mattrick. "If you have zero access to the internet, that is an offline device." Mattrick's comments appear to ignore scenarios where internet connectivity can be unstable or unreliable.

      They only back peddled quite some time after massive backlash from pretty much everyone.

      https://www.ign.com/articles/2013/06/19/microsoft-reversing-xbox-one-internet-used-game-policies

      Xbox One will also no longer restrict used games, and will instead allow discs to be exchanged in the same way they are on Xbox 360. There will be no additional restrictions for trade-ins or lending games to friends.
      and
      "Since unveiling our plans for Xbox One, my team and I have heard directly from many of you, read your comments and listened to your feedback," Microsoft's Don Mattrick wrote. "I would like to take the opportunity today to thank you for your assistance in helping us to reshape the future of Xbox One. You told us how much you loved the flexibility you have today with games delivered on disc. The ability to lend, share, and resell these games at your discretion is of incredible importance to you. Also important to you is the freedom to play offline, for any length of time, anywhere in the world."

      Those facts are not important to Microsoft, and they don't even claim so. They just want peoples money, and this back peddle was the best way to get more of that.

      5 years ago for many people this day and age might as well have been over a lifetime ago.
      Microsoft will continue to keep trying until raping their customers makes more money than giving them what they want.

  5. Xbone Redux by mentil · · Score: 3

    Noone's yet brought up how this echoes what MS tried to do with the Xbox One at launch? They wanted to mandate that all games be tied to an account before they'll run, and can't be resold/traded without also transferring the license. There was a huge backlash against this, with the cheaper PS4 not requiring any such thing, so MS backpedaled and had a day-one patch that killed the last remnants of the registration system. Seems they're bringing it back as an option. I guess the lower price is for casual gamers who might jump on a $200 Xbox but not a $300 one? That also have fast broadband to download their games? Who are these people?

    --
    Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
    1. Re: Xbone Redux by Cmdln+Daco · · Score: 2

      You can still download stand-alone installable games from GOG. Even some brand new releases are available there. The installers are always broken into 4gb chunks that can be easily burned to cheap dvd-r media. I'm not sure I am missing that much by not having logged into steam for about a half year now.

    2. Re:Xbone Redux by skam240 · · Score: 2

      "The $200 price point is for parents whose kids keep begging for an Xbox, but the price is just a bit out of reach."

      Kids don't make money and are therefore not at all the primary drivers of gaming sales. This is well demonstrated statistically with adult titles driving overall game sales.

      "As far as fast broadband not being a requirement for downloading games, I used to have 3Mbit/sec DSL, which was closer to 2Mbit/sec most of the time. Destiny 2 is a bit over 80GB, meaning that it would take nearly four days to download if I did literally nothing else with my bandwidth during that time. Fast broadband not being a requirement is, as CGP Grey would put it, "technically correct, in the most pointless kind of way".

      For lower income people the time delay in downloading a game is meaningless if they are able to play the game after the fact. When you are lower income you make due. I know this from personal experience.

      --
      I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
  6. Re:BeauHD is a dumbass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    The 'digital' used in the topic is for Digital Equipment Corporation, or DEC. It's not a generic catchall for everything that could be considered 'digital', i.e. 'not analog', but it's pretty clear that the current slashdot editors are ignorant of this. as are you, apparently.