Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net . You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01 ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-24/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Andrew E. Freedman Social Links Navigation Senior Editor Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and BlueSky @andrewfreedman.net . You can send him tips on Signal: andrewfreedman.01
thestryker For every game with backwards compatibility the solution has already been made. I have a feeling any restrictions on this capability are purely DRM related and nothing else. If DRM is indeed the problem and they opt to not have disc drives in the future then the obvious solution is to allow people to use a regular USB disc drive. It doesn't have to be able to play the game off the disc to recognize what it is so at that point grant a digital license which works whenever the disc is detected. It's a clunky solution, but a much better one than "you're out of luck because the game you wanted to play isn't supported by our DRM system". Reply
JamesJones44 It would be nice if they allowed game lending like Nintendo has does with virtual game cartridges so you can lend it to friends/family without buying another copy just to check it out. I doubt we will get that from MS/Sony or anyone else but it would be nice. Reply
TerryLaze thestryker said: For every game with backwards compatibility the solution has already been made. I have a feeling any restrictions on this capability are purely DRM related and nothing else. If DRM is indeed the problem and they opt to not have disc drives in the future then the obvious solution is to allow people to use a regular USB disc drive. It doesn't have to be able to play the game off the disc to recognize what it is so at that point grant a digital license which works whenever the disc is detected. It's a clunky solution, but a much better one than "you're out of luck because the game you wanted to play isn't supported by our DRM system". This is purely to turn physical games, that people can trade/sell into digital games that people can't trade anymore, gotta protect your sales from the secondary market. Discs will continue to work after you've enabled the digital entitlement, but you'll lose your digital rights to the game if you transfer the disc to someone else by loaning it or selling it. The digital games will also reportedly be able to be streamed if they're part of Xbox Play Anywhere. Reply
Randi Poling If they can get this to work, cool, but it still sucks to see a potential end to physical backwards compatibility on newer consoles. Glad I'm keeping my XBOX One X kicking in my office. With Sonys announcement, and now this (making people hop through hoops)? I can see sales of new, next gen consoles being SLOWWWWW from the start due to a potential lack of titles at release. Reply
thestryker TerryLaze said: This is purely to turn physical games, that people can trade/sell into digital games that people can't trade anymore, gotta protect your sales from the secondary market. Duh? Did you miss my point or are you confused? They have arbitrary restrictions on what qualifies which is what I'm talking about: According to the report, employees at Xbox are testing the "Disc2Digital" feature, which will work on Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S discs, but not the original Xbox or Xbox 360. … The Verge also claims that some Xbox One games may not have the feature, quoting a Microsoft warning to testers: "It all depends on how and when the disc was manufactured and it may not have the features we need for this program." Reply
ezst036 TerryLaze said: This is purely to turn physical games, that people can trade/sell into digital games that people can't trade anymore, gotta protect your sales from the secondary market. Not enough consumers care enough to buy physical games and eschew consoles lacking a disc drive. From what I understand those console variants PS5+Disc and where applicable Xbox + Disc are not the mad mad hottest sellers of the bunch. Most customers do not want this anymore. It isn't the companies taking anything away. It's customers abandoning discs. Reply
hotaru251 was it the 1st or 2nd XB that you installed gaem to HDD from dic? Wanna bet they sell an overpriced XB branded external disc player to do same? Reply
thisisaname You will own nothing and be happy. Reply
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- https://www.tomshardware.com/video-games/console-gaming/xbox-reportedly-testing-a-way-to-digitize-physical-games-in-the-wake-of-playstation-killing-game-discs-feature-said-to-go-back-to-xbox-one-era-games#main
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