Microsoft Potentially Ditching Physical Media Entirely?

[Moonface]

Another day, and yet more layoffs in the gaming industry, but the ones by Microsoft that have been coming out today might be painting a picture of the companies Xbox division looking to ditch physical media almost (if not entirely) completely. Rumors that a digital only mid-gen refresh for Xbox console has been in the works doesn't help to quell concerns about this coming to pass.

It wouldn't surprise me to see Xbox go down this route, considering their focus is on Game Pass subscriptions and there was that infamous E3 presentation for the Xbox One where they first pitched a digital only console to the masses. I just hope that Sony and Nintendo don't follow suit, but I think that'll be unlikely since the Insomniac leak showed that PlayStation games get a lot of physical sales, and Nintendo just don't seem the type to go fully digital anyway.

Do you think Xbox will go fully digital and join the PCMR in the digital only garden? Regardless of what company were to do this first, would it affect sales due to the lack of physical presence in stores removing what essentially works as advertising and brand awareness?

[ShiraNoMai]

Xbox seem really invested in their X-Cloud stuff. I imagine they really want to see a future of digital only platforms with the subscription model being their complete end goal (like a Hulu, Netflix, etc. but for games).

They'll probably coast until the internet is viable enough worldwide to get it to be even realistic.

[her]

You will own nothing and be happy.

[Moonface]

I'd be curious to see if third party games that are on consoles other than Xbox would start to not bother with physical editions for any platform, especially if it's something that comes to one other platform besides Xbox and PC because I can see some publishers questioning why spend the money on printing physical copies for 1/3 of the supported platforms.

[ShiraNoMai]

Yeah that'll be an interesting thing to see. It'll also cut costs on splitting development across platforms, so more resources can be allocated into just the one build rather than multiple.

[Dragon Lord]

I'd be curious to see if third party games that are on consoles other than Xbox would start to not bother with physical editions for any platform, especially if it's something that comes to one other platform besides Xbox and PC because I can see some publishers questioning why spend the money on printing physical copies for 1/3 of the supported platforms.

It's going to be great when you need to spend $800 on your PS6, and then another $600+ on an 8TB SSD to go with it.

Let's just hope an all digital future isn't quite in our cards yet. Hopefully it's only Microsoft, the poor indie company with no money, who has to cut costs by eliminating all physical copies.

[Moonface]

Yeah that'll be an interesting thing to see. It'll also cut costs on splitting development across platforms, so more resources can be allocated into just the one build rather than multiple.

I don't see how games going digital only would affect development costs or reduce the number of builds a game needs to have. Surely if a game has to be developed with multiple builds for multiple platforms that's due to what those platforms run as their core language?


@Dragon Lord: I expect it'll only be Microsoft for a considerable while if they go forward with this, since Sony and Nintendo still make a lot of sales off of physical copies whereas I suspect Xbox gets most of their sales via digital and Game Pass subscriptions. I did at one point after this story broke see another article claiming that physical sales for Xbox were less than 10% across all physical game sales in the US last year, but when I went to go find it again it was nowhere to be found so I'm doubtful of the accuracy of that claim now.

[Moonface]

VGC | Several European retailers are reportedly no longer stocking physical Xbox games

I just saw this article, and it wouldn't surprise me if this is true because Xbox isn't a huge seller in Europe, and apparently the Series S makes up the bulk of Xbox console sales in the EU which would further impact physical game sales if that is the case. I'm hoping the EU has better internet speeds than the UK does though because I'd never consider a digital console in the UK with how bad internet speeds were in my area.