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There's obviously been a lot of talk over the past few days about Sony's decision to cease physical discs for PlayStation consoles as of 2028, and some people have been urging Xbox to not make the same "mistake" in the process.
It's been a belief for a while now that Xbox's next console (known as Project Helix) won't include a disc drive out of the box, but apparently that still hasn't been "fully finalised" yet - at least according to a report from The Verge last week.
"I understand Microsoft hasn’t fully finalized whether the next-generation Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, will ship with a built-in disc drive..."
This was a particularly interesting mention from The Verge, as others had been reporting that Helix almost certainly wouldn't ship with a built-in disc drive. Windows Central's Jez Corden was one of those people, for example, who took to the Xbox Two Podcast recently to suggest that Microsoft appears to be reevaluating how to handle the situation around physical discs, although he's still of the belief that a built-in disc drive is unlikely for Project Helix.
"Tom Warren put in an article [on The Verge] that nothing has been decided for Helix yet. Things had been decided for Helix previously, however Tom had more up to date information that [Microsoft is] now seeing what might be possible about Helix with regards to discs."
"I went and tried to update my information, and it does seem like indeed - they are trying to figure out what they can do here before they fully commit to the death of physical discs."
Again, as mentioned, Corden doesn't think a disc drive will ship as standard in Project Helix, but perhaps a separate add-on could be available for the console that would read discs instead.
It's also worth noting that The Verge's report was mainly about a disc-to-digital feature that's said to be in the works at Xbox right now, allowing you to convert your physical collection of games into digital licenses. Are they doing this because they know that discs won't be produced or supported in the future? It remains to be seen.
For what it's worth, we polled you about this question a few days ago, with 49% of Pure Xbox voters suggesting that Helix will likely support an optional add-on disc drive at best. You can see the results from that poll down below, and please do submit your vote if you haven't got around to it yet.
We'll let you know if we get concrete news either way on Xbox's plans to support discs for Project Helix.