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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.
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.
The New Microsoft Feudalism: You own NOTHING, they own EVERYTHING, and you RENT IT from them. Don't like it? Starve, peasant.
Fuck you, Miscreant-o-soft, fuck you sideways with a rusty chainsaw. So glad I don't use ANY of your 'products' anymore.
"No one is buying our console. What can we do?"
"Let's produce a model that lacks some functions."
"Genius!"
Circumcision is child abuse.
When Microsoft shuts down the store like Nintendo shut down the Wiii shop. At least with the Wii we still have physical discs as a backup.
With "streaming games" they can keep the games at Microsoft and not worry about copies. Push down manufacturing even further, just give them an ARM chip that connects to a remote gaming sessions.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
and cut off people with low caps / bad pings?
At least with an download system you can download at uncapped times.
100 hours of 4K can get to 1TB. With the 5G push att's 15GB cap at $499 router + $70/mo and then what $10-$15GB.
There's clearly still a need for physical media, as not everyone can download 50GB in a reasonable amount of time
Hey Anonymous Coward - When you watch a movie on Netflix they don't download the whole movie to you before it starts.
I assume something similar would happen here. They'd download content and layers if and when they're needed, not all at the beginning.
because I pay on average $10 bucks for a game (and that's heavily skewed by the once a year purchase for a AAA game at full pop, take that out and it's closer to $5).
Console games OTOH are way more expensive. They don't go on the crazy sales Steam games do.
Most games launch in an unusable state anyway. You'll need the patches or the game sucks. That's because that way they can ship the disk in beta form and have it serve it's purpose to reduce load on their servers while letting them get the game out a few months early. I suppose it'd be nice to have games ship ready to go, but you'll either get lesser graphic fidelity (I'm lookin' at you Nintendo) or need to pay an extra $10-$20 bucks to account for an added development cycle before money starts coming in. Consumers don't want to pay more than $60 bucks for a game, so we're stuck there.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Do they not remember this? https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
They'd download content and layers if and when they're needed, not all at the beginning.
In that case, for gamers who happen to live outside the service footprint of fiber, cable, and DSL, it could take months to play through a game while staying under the monthly cap that satellite and cellular ISPs impose on their subscribers.
Nah, it's the reverse. You by the game on disc, then it downloads the 50 GB anyway before you can play, since games are nothing but patches. But you still can't play without the disc.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
...designed for your living room. PC gamers have been buying/playing digitally distributed games this way for years through Steam. Set the pitchforks down. It's no big deal, in fact, it's preferred. Eventually you appreciate the lack of game boxes and disk clutter collecting dust in your home. Game pricing will be more dynamic and overall cheaper (like they are on Steam) because studios don't have to pay physical packaging and shipping, and they bypass brick-and-mortar stores whose real interest is selling used copies of games over and over again. The only people who should fear the digital Xbox is Gamestop....and tin-hatters, but that goes without saying, they already fear everything.
I won't be buying anything that can only "stream" a game. That is stupid and complete nonsense. The game needs to be extremely fast and responsive, so it needs to be stored locally. Unless they plan on putting in a TB of RAM and never losing power, lol.
Considering I use my PS4 and PS3 systems as Blu-ray players, I'm very likely to not buy a console they won't accept discs in the future.
Could this spell the end for Xbox, I wonder?
I've tried to wrap my head around how any of the idiots in charge at Microsoft think that this is a good idea. My guess is that these asshats are playing the long game. They're ok with anyone older than 25 saying "fuck you." What they're after is our children. (Won't someone think of them?) If you can get clueless children and preteens used to this, then they'll be hooked forever. The rest of their lives will then suffer and assume it's completely normal to not own anything.
In some years' time, XBox's mascot should then be turned into Joe Camel, as I'd prefer they be more honest with their intentions.
Did the previous XBox include a phonograph, cassette or 8-track device?
Otherwise, wasn't it already "all-digital" with the CD/DVD/Blu-ray (whatever) device?
[ Yes, I know I'm being pedantic, but I seriously hate marketing people. ]
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
They advertised the PS3 as an all in one personal computer.
For the PS4, they still talked about it as a media console, but then forgot about that with the PS Pro. Seriously, where was the 4k blu-ray drive?
I wouldn't put it past Sony to remove the drive in the next console. I also think it would be silly for them to do, but I don't ascribe a lot of intelligence to Sony management, especially with putting Jim Ryan in charge of Playstation. This is the guy the questioned the need for backwards compatibility.
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
MIcrosoft has been making dickless consoles for years... oh, wait, you said "disc-less"... my bad!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
unreturned xbox fee $1000
A decade ago Sony release the PSPGo which was an all digital download handheld gaming device.
The blowback from the Japanese retail gaming shops was massive enough for them to threaten Sony to never do this again or they would refuse to support any Sony console in their stores.
Since Microsoft is going to go this route itâ(TM)s safe to say that the Xbox will be dead in Japan if it isnâ(TM)t already. The Japanese domestic market is extremely loyal to their Japanese companies, and an all digital Xbox will be the final nail in the coffin.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
Seems to be an expectation that people will download Multi gigabyte updates. A lot of the numbers on that list are in the 10's of gigabytes, with "Halo 5: Guardians" being over 50GB.
Honestly this seems like quite a substantial wait, even with a very fast connection you'll be waiting over an hour, but people will put up with it, it seems.
A half-way house XBox sounds like a waste of time tbh - it prevents people buying the cheaper physical disks and the size of most downloads means it would rapidly fill up even if it packed a large hdd.
The XBone Sad edition.
With the PSP GO.
It was a PSP console that couldn't read PSP discs and could only get its games online.
See how successful it was.
Oh, and btw, Microsoft already cut original Xbox consoles from Xbox Live a long time ago, so there is a precedent for being shafted that way by this particular company.
M$ is something an edgelord would say.
I'm having trouble understanding your thought process, as M$ is the name of a string variable in line-numbered BASIC. Did you mean "BASIC programmers are edgelords"? Or "People who use a term for Microsoft that calls to mind its roots as a publisher of BASIC interpreters are edgelords"?
Probably pushing about 350 pounds with a closet full of fedoras.
I'm not sure what being able to bench press 350 lb and in charge of a rack or two of servers running RPM-based GNU/Linux has to do with anything.
Young people [...] watch movies on their 5 inch phone screen that has a big crack running across it from when they dropped it. They'll do this while sitting in a room with a 50" TV.
I'd bet it's because someone older is using the 50" TV at the time, and this older person has priority to select the programming on the 50" TV on account of being older.
Don't buy that console, buy the slightly more expensive version that still has the disc.
This works only if the manufacturer continues to manufacture "the slightly more expensive version that still has the disc." When Microsoft's Xbox division first floated always-online DRM in the Xbox One prior to release, the head of Xbox suggested with a straight face that users stuck behind capped or no Internet can stick with the Xbox 360. (Source: "Xbox chief: we have a product for people who can't get online, it's called Xbox 360" by Daniel Cooper)
So why are not ROM SD-cards, or forcibly write-protected regular SD-cards a thing?
Are Nintendo Switch Game Cards close enough?
I haven't jumped onto this gen and probably won't bother. Dropping the console price by a few quid is unimportant when each game costs £50 - that is not pocket change! Oh, that and the fact that I used to like EA's output but not since they turned into a corporate monster.