Microsoft Will Launch Disc-Less, 'All Digital' Xbox One S Next Month, Report Says (cnet.com)

Microsoft's next iteration of the Xbox One may not have a disc at all, and it might be coming sooner than you think. From a report: That's at least according to rumors from Windows Central, which says a disc-less Xbox One S "All-Digital Edition" will be offered for preorders in April. The new device, said to be code-named Maverick, will offer a "disc-to-digital" program, letting fans turn in physical game discs and convert them to digital downloads, Windows Central added.

One benefit of this new Xbox, Windows Central said, would be that it could push the price of an Xbox down. The Xbox One S starts at $299 and is typically bundled with a game. A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment. The move could mark a turning point for the video game industry, which has sold video games on discs and cartridges for decades. Some people still prefer to buy physical copies of their games, in part to share them with friends or trade them in at retailers like GameStop.

Comments

Re:Never own anything, rent everything

[olsmeister]

but...but...but... recurring revenue! (all the bean-counters get instant erections)

Re:Never own anything, rent everything

[Penguinisto]

You do realize they're not the first to do this... Adobe has been successfully doing the Software-as-rental for Photoshop (and related applications) for years now, and artists everywhere just continue to choke it down.

Now to be fair, most figure 'meh, the company is paying for it!', or rationalize it as a business expense if they're freelance. By contrast, I have no idea what the gaming crowd is going to do with an XBox that's not much more than a coin-op (card-op?) arcade game sitting in their living room.

If I were to guess? Well, let's just say that if Sony is sufficiently smart, they'll avoid this model and subsequently clean up in the console space - at least long enough for MSFT to panic and suddenly ship free DVD/BluRay readers (and include them with all subsequent XBox consoles sold...)

Re:Heard in a Microsoft meeting room

[supremebob]

Seriously, though... when was the last time you bought a game on a physical disk? Services like Steam has pretty much made that obsolete. Even watching Blu Ray discs is becoming something that only "old people" do now.

This this makes the new XBox $50 cheaper, more power to them. You're basically required to have always on Internet access for most games anyway, so it's not like you're losing any much functionality here.

Re:Never own anything, rent everything

[lgw]

The New Microsoft Feudalism: You own NOTHING, they own EVERYTHING, and you RENT IT from them. Don't like it? Starve, peasant.

Nothing about this is new. You can buy a disc, but the game does not come on the disc - the entire game is downloaded anyway, except maybe a few art assets that weren't patched. Almost every modern game is always-online, so what good would the disc do you anyhow.

You are longing for a time that has already passed you by, several years ago.

Re:Never own anything, rent everything

[Pikoro]

Granted, I'm as anti-SaaS as the next guy, but in Adobe's case, it works.

Take the photographer's pack. Photoshop and Lightroom for $9/mo. If you were to buy them full retail, Photoshop CS6, the last version you could "buy" was $699. That means that for your $9/mo, it would take you 77 months (nearly 6.5 years) to have paid the full retail price. In the mean time, 4 new versions would have come out, each release costing around $300 to upgrade. Then add Lightroom on top of that.

In this case, it really DOES make sense to just use the subscription. Plus, it's licensed for two computers at a time, and you can pause your subscription when you want if you pay month to month.

It my eyes, Photoshop has always been too expensive, but in this instance, it's better than the hassle of switching to Gimp.