This sounds pretty cool, but I'm having a little trouble understanding how this is especially beneficial to game preservation specifically. Like, I have been buying physical Xbox games since the 360, but if one of those discs can't be played on my Series X, I'll just play it on my old Xbox One or 360, as I still own those consoles. Especially since a digital version of a game is, by definition, at the mercy of Microsoft (ie they can stop supporting it at any time and there's nothing you can do), I feel like for this initiative to be truly great for game preservation it would have to be pretty much the opposite of what it is, Digital-to-Disc instead of (or even in addition to) Disc-to Digital.
Specifically, a feature where you could transfer any digital game to a physical disk. Of course, this would be a "transfer"; when you put the game on the disk the digital version would be removed, thus preventing people from using it to duplicate and their games and sell the physical version while keeping the digital version.
This system would allow you to safely store any digital game in physical form, so that unless the disc is damaged or the console stops working, you can always play the game.
After all, if I want to play a game that I have on disc, I can just put the disc in the drive and play it, even if it came out decades ago. But if I want to play a game that I got digitally 15 years ago and it's been delisted, unless I still have the game on my hard drive I'm out of luck.
Several other commenters have speculated that this feature could be due to the possibility of Helix not having a disc drive at all. If that is indeed the case, I will not be buying Helix as that means going forward ownership of new games will be at the mercy of Microsoft. I trust a physical disk in my hands infinitely more than I trust a corporation not to discontinue support for the digital version of a game at some point. It has happened far too many times already.
Finally, as others have pointed out, the possibility of taking a console offline before playing the disc for a game that someone else redeemed the digital license for means that unless Microsoft is very foolish, redeeming a digital license is almost guaranteed to render the disk unplayable offline.
Comments 1
Re: Xbox Disc To Digital Announced, Supports Thousands Of Physical Games At Launch
This sounds pretty cool, but I'm having a little trouble understanding how this is especially beneficial to game preservation specifically. Like, I have been buying physical Xbox games since the 360, but if one of those discs can't be played on my Series X, I'll just play it on my old Xbox One or 360, as I still own those consoles. Especially since a digital version of a game is, by definition, at the mercy of Microsoft (ie they can stop supporting it at any time and there's nothing you can do), I feel like for this initiative to be truly great for game preservation it would have to be pretty much the opposite of what it is, Digital-to-Disc instead of (or even in addition to) Disc-to Digital.
Specifically, a feature where you could transfer any digital game to a physical disk. Of course, this would be a "transfer"; when you put the game on the disk the digital version would be removed, thus preventing people from using it to duplicate and their games and sell the physical version while keeping the digital version.
This system would allow you to safely store any digital game in physical form, so that unless the disc is damaged or the console stops working, you can always play the game.
After all, if I want to play a game that I have on disc, I can just put the disc in the drive and play it, even if it came out decades ago. But if I want to play a game that I got digitally 15 years ago and it's been delisted, unless I still have the game on my hard drive I'm out of luck.
Several other commenters have speculated that this feature could be due to the possibility of Helix not having a disc drive at all. If that is indeed the case, I will not be buying Helix as that means going forward ownership of new games will be at the mercy of Microsoft. I trust a physical disk in my hands infinitely more than I trust a corporation not to discontinue support for the digital version of a game at some point. It has happened far too many times already.
Finally, as others have pointed out, the possibility of taking a console offline before playing the disc for a game that someone else redeemed the digital license for means that unless Microsoft is very foolish, redeeming a digital license is almost guaranteed to render the disk unplayable offline.