Is Microsoft preparing for an all-digital Xbox future without a Blu-Ray drive? Management is vague.
Difficult times for fans of physical computer and video games: The British supermarket chain Tesco stopped sales last year – and in this country too, it is becoming increasingly difficult to purchase games on discs or modules in retail stores. In electronics markets, department stores and drugstores, the number of shelves is dwindling; In Germany alone, GameStop has closed two-thirds of its former 200 branches.
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The largest selection is still in the Nintendo Switch segment – when it comes to PC games, however, 97 out of 100 purchases already take place on online platforms such as Steam. For reasons: More and more gaming PCs and laptops no longer have any drives installed as standard.
Sony Interactive and Microsoft are also gradually preparing their audiences for a purely digital future: the current generation of consoles is the first to have models from the outset without Blu-Ray slot includes – in the form of the PlayStation 5 Digital Edition and the Xbox Series S.
With a view to the flat-rate subscription service Xbox Game Pass and the prosperous cloud business, Microsoft is considered the obvious candidate for a radical switch to a disc-less console future – explicitly since September 2023: Because in the wake of the Activision-Blizzard During the process, documents became public showing a revised Xbox Series X with the code name Brooklin. Black, cylindrical, more storage space, redesigned controller – and above all ‘all digital’. Planned market launch: 2024, presumably in time for the Christmas business.
Even though the company quickly declared the presentations to be outdated, the genie was out of the bottle.
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Anyone who had hoped for something enlightening from the latest ‘Business Update’ was disappointed. Also upon request Industry service game file Gaming CEO Phil Spencer avoided making a specific statement and left it at that Stand-now-State descriptions: Physical media is supported, but it depends on what the majority of customers want. And the reality is that this majority get their PC and Xbox games via download or stream – and not on disc.
And Spencer points out a second, rarely discussed circumstance: Game consoles are one of the few categories in the consumer electronics sector that are still equipped with a drive. In view of the remaining producers and the declining demand, an increasingly relevant cost factor inevitably arises.
Only one thing is clear: The question of whether consoles will still be able to process discs in the future or not is not part of Microsoft’s strategy. Nevertheless, Spencer’s statements leave enough scope in all directions: It is conceivable, for example, that the previous Xbox Series X will be marketed as a cheap discontinued model for a certain period of time even after the relaunch. Alternatively, Microsoft could offer a separate USB Blu-Ray drive so that existing games and films can still be used.