There's been an interesting report that's come out this week about Xbox and physical releases, with Gamer Social Club receiving a statement from Xbox that there's no minimum order quantity for disc-based titles on the platform anymore.
"Xbox has no minimum order quantity for physical media. Retailers, studios and partners make their own decisions based on what they feel is best for their business and players. If a developer wants to make physical copies of their Xbox games, they should get in touch with us to learn how to get started.”
This has led to some confusion about why so many developers (specifically of the indie variety) mention that they can't make physical versions of their Xbox games, and one developer in particular has chimed in about this on social media.
The solo creator behind 2023's BROK The InvestiGator mentioned on Twitter yesterday that they explored the possibility of putting their game into a physical format with Xbox, but ultimately determined that it was too complex. They advised that it's basically a job in itself, and they couldn't take the risk of not making their money back as well.
"Basically one reason I didn't proceed with it, is that the process is still complex. If it was just sending the money and filling a form I would have done it, but you have to choose and reach the factories yourself, plus some legal stuff, even insurance I think. I also don't have a warehouse to store 1,000 copies and deliver them, that's a lot of work. It's already hard enough to handle the PC physical in my apartment, which I sold 400 units of, lol.
And last time I was directly involved in a physical creation, was to make the manuals for Demetrios on PS4 and Vita. It was horrible. Sony didn't tell me how to do it, they used very specific terminology, I had to get specific software and they kept rejecting it. Frankly it's a job and I can't do this on top of everything else, especially given the risk of not making the money back."
In follow-up comments, they advised that a "limited run publisher" handles the PlayStation and Nintendo Switch physical versions for them, and Xbox needs something similar that's "willing to accept small orders of Xbox units". However, they also mentioned that because their game isn't selling particularly well for those other two platforms, they're not confident it could even sell beyond 500 physical copies for Xbox.
This is where the problem lies for so many developers and publishers, then, and the BROK creator admits that digital releases are "soooo much easier and practical for devs" compared to physical releases across all platforms.
You can see where this is going! When you combine the complexity of releasing physical games alongside the apparently poor sales of them on Xbox, many indies aren't going to justify a disc-based release these days. That goes for all platforms as we look to the future, but Xbox is the one that makes most sense for digital-only titles right now.