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Disc-Free Xbox One S Could Land on May 7 (techcrunch.com)
Microsoft is about to launch an even cheaper Xbox One S. In order to cut costs, the company is removing the Blu-ray disc drive altogether. According to leaked marketing images spotted by WinFuture, the console could launch on May 7th for $258 in Germany. From a report: Given that the launch is just a few weeks away and that those marketing images line up perfectly with previous rumors, chances are this is the real deal. As you can see on WinFuture's images, it looks exactly like an Xbox One S without the disc slot. The console is called Xbox One S All Digital and comes with a 1TB hard drive -- most standard Xbox One S consoles currently also feature a 1TB hard drive. Microsoft states clearly that this console is only for digital games. If you already have physical Xbox One games, you wonâ(TM)t be able to insert them in the console.
I thought the sales problem is how the xbox one is lagging in technology. Making it difficult for the next generation of games to come to play.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Seriously, does anyone even want this? Microsoft already faced huge backlash over trying to make XBox One online only. I thought it was obvious that consumers want at least the ability to play offline. The Disc-free console will be a break when Live is unavailable, which does happen occasionally. I guess this is better only that it's not the only option available.
For my child, I frequently disable the Xbox network connection, so that annoying advertisements, brainless Youtube videos, intro-freebies, and toxic multiplayer games can't get through. Basically, playing offline greatly reduces all the addictive ADD-inducing garbage that's peddled by the online marketplace.
Without a network connection, disc-based games still work. Digital download games usually don't work anymore. So removing the optical drive isn't just a cost-saving move, it's another dick move that reduces people's privacy, keeps people always-online, and increases Microsoft's revenue opportunities at your expense.
So these new consoles aren't compatible with analogue games, apparently.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
Part of the cost of ownership of a console without a cartridge slot or optical drive is the cost of an Internet connection. I'm not familiar with the German ISP market, but there are a lot of areas in the USA where only satellite and cellular are available. Last I checked, satellite ISPs imposed a monthly quota and charged exorbitant fees for data overages, as did cellular ISPs' mobile hotspot provision.[1] In some places, the cost of downloading 30 GB of data that make up a game can exceed the $60 purchase price of a game.
[1] Cellular ISPs offer "unlimited" plans only for packets sent to and from applications running on the phone, not to mobile hotspot use. They distinguish apps from hotspot use in several ways. These include fingerprinting the behavior of the TCP/IP stack (TTL/hop count, sequence numbers, etc.) and detecting whether the device is visiting desktop or game console operating systems' update servers (DNS, SNI, IP addresses).
Some parents don't introduce video games until a child is older, instead introducing their children to a rich variety of tabletop games (and not just Hasbro's overplayed products). Board, card, and dice games work offline so well that most even work without electric power. It's an option.
The term "digital" for paid downloads appears to come from a generalization of "digital phonorecord delivery", a term of art in U.S copyright law. The statute, 17 USC 115, recognizes a compulsory license for making distributing a "phonorecord" (copy of a sound recording) of a musical work, intended to allow for cover versions with the payment of an appropriate royalty. It defines "digital phonorecord delivery" so as to distinguish a permanent download from an ephemeral download associated with streaming, as their royalty structures differ.
Profit.
I cringe at the thought of only being able to use one platform for digital purchases. I only buy physical games (PC I use steam and gog) for consoles because I can sell the game on Ebay for half the original cost. 50% all games? ill take that deal. Its not like you are given digital games for a lifetime, they make you repurchase them when you buy new hardware so digital games are almost worthless.
People like to say how impressive it is games have not gone up in price, well, they have quite a bit, but not in an obvious way. One of those ways is the huge cost savings to the publisher not making physical copies. I cant remember the figures... $6 for a CD/jewel case/packaging per game? Thats seems a little high but still but its 10% of a game price right there.
You'll be able to play your games until MS decides to kill the service, then you'll own nothing. See Zune and Window Phone...
Or Will Microsoft not give us this option?
Microsoft continues to lead the pack in terms of ludicrous names.
First we had the Xbox, which made sense. Then we had the Xbox 360, which didn't make much sense. People called it "the 360", so being proper villains, they decided to come up with a name that would make people call their new system "the one", like complete with religious overtones, because that's a good use for whatever part of our meat computers experience religion and awe, some disposable plastic box.
To accomplish this, they named it the Xbox One, which no one calls it, because there's already an Xbox 1, it's the thing that came before the Xbox 360. It gets labelled "one" in retrospect because that is how numbers work.
So it's the Xbone. Microsoft fought this because they thought it was some slur, but really, it's just what it's called.
So then we ended up with the Xbonex and the Xbones.
And now this one- the "Xbox One S All Digital", which is now the XBONE S.A.D.
When you purchase a hard copy ( disc ) of a brand new game, it is likely already useless as the game developers seem to be incapable of launching and shipping a game that actually works right out of the box. ( It's called incompetence )
You'll put your disc in and your game system will usually tell you that an n gigabyte level patch ( where n is a ridiculously large number ) is necessary before you can actually play the game. It may or may not also require a console firmware update as well.
The way I see it, owning the physical disc is pretty pointless as it usually contains a broken / buggy version of the game. ( Assuming you even get a physical disc. Some are giving you a pretty box with nothing more than a download link / code inside. Even high $$$ professional software is guilty of this. )
Additionally, moving to an all digital / download model is pretty much the final nail in the coffin for the secondary / used game markets.
This will do for consoles what Steam did to PC's.
I've had a disk free XBox for years, after my toddler shoved crap in the DVD slot and broke it.
I don't understand why the current generation of game consoles even have a optical drive in them. From what I can tell, a good chunk of the game has to be downloaded anyhow. Did they include it because physical media has been the norm historically?
When the PS3 came out, it was probably the best option for a Blu-Ray player. But these days a Blu-Ray player is so cheap, I would guess that anyone that wants one, already has it. From what I understand, both the current XBox and PS require an internet connection to even play single player games. So what was the point of having a drive?
No seriously, they have been building up their library of older games as a selling point for the last few years. I guess I viewed it also as a way to atone for the XBONE's original sin's of being always online/spyhardware when announced. Who is this for anyway? Seriously, who? I can't tell who this is for on the consumer side, every single digital only console so far has been a wet fart on the market. Is it for the person who can't afford 300$ but can afford the extra hundreds in cost for buying games ONLY from the MS store? People who bought into the last hardware generation but haven't bought into this one? The shareholders? I guess if you've got an old XBox live login and never bought a ONE this generation you could justify this as a low cost entry to the Xbox store...but that makes no sense. Those are corpses and people who abandoned the platform, not consumers interested in buying into a mature platform.
As I have a grandkid with an Xbone and ya know what? I don't think he has ever run a disc in the thing, all his games came from the Xbox store. He doesn't even need the drive for his older X360 games as his 360 still is hooked up and runs just fine so I can see a market for this.
And its not like we haven't seen the same thing happen to PC gaming, hell the last time I bought a "physical copy" of a game it just turned out to be a CD with a Steam installer and a Steam code so its not like having the disc means shit in this day and age anyway, so if they can make it cheaper and everyone is grabbing their games from the Xbox store why not?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.