WYP
News Guru
An Xbox One S Slim is also rumoured to be in the works.
Read more about Microsoft's rumoured diskless Xbox One console.
Read more about Microsoft's rumoured diskless Xbox One console.
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Microsoft's reportedly building a Disk-less version of the Xbox One
- Thread starter WYP
- Start date
With game pass and sites like G2A you can get finally get most consoles games a lot cheaper in digital form compared to physical(As it should have been from the start)- and you can often get keys that work on both PC & Xbox. Some of the best selling modern AAA games don't even get disk releases(PUBG, Fortnite, Minecraft ect's physical copies all amount to key codes in a box). Meanwhile ODDs are still one of the heaviest, noisiest & mechanically complex(IE Likely to fail) parts in the system, while taking up a significant chunk of the area in modern systems. To be honest, I wouldn't be at all surprised if next gen Microsoft relegated the disk drive to an optional external add-on.
(I've personally only ever known of one person who owned any Blu Rays and he owned a grand total of 4; Which were then pretty much immediately ripped onto a HDD and encoded in H265)
(I've personally only ever known of one person who owned any Blu Rays and he owned a grand total of 4; Which were then pretty much immediately ripped onto a HDD and encoded in H265)
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The lack of game reselling and the requirement for DRM are both side effects of discless gaming yes. Is that a bad thing? Only if digital copies are sold at equivalent to pricing as physical.
Generally, you can save far more money by buying digital now than you can get back from trading in or sharing physical copies. You couldn't when the Xbone first launched which is why there was a backlash. You can on Steam which is why no one ever cared, and you often can now on Xbone & PS4, which is a significant portion of modern owners have a digital-only library by choice anyway.
To be honest, I always felt the backlash against the Xbone's original DRM system was not just out of proportion but purely emotional and completely lacking in any logic. For all intents and purposes, the original proposed DRM system(With its disc-less game sharing and the like) would have given us much more freedom and ability to share our digital content than we currently have on PS4 or Xbone. In many ways I feel MS's abandoning of their original DRM system for the screeching minorities of "hardcore" console gamers represented an overwhelming step backwards for the industry & the way most people actually went on to use their consoles, and it was always inevitably going to be the system we'd adopt down the line sooner or later.
But of course, the difference here is that people now have a choice. If you want the old-style way of buying games you can still buy a disk'd Xbox and do what you want with the physical game copy. If you'd rather pay a fraction of the price and have a copy that can't get lost, damaged, worn & doesn't need physical disk swapping and the like you can do that too.
I DONT think diskless should dissapear, because we still live in a world where people have 1MBPS DSL internet connections. But I'm sure for many with 20MPS+ connections going up to cheap and prevalent 200MBPS+ connections throughout much of mainland Europe, the idea of waiting a day or two for a disk to get shipped or even hours to make the journey for the store has very little appeal when you can now often download the whole game while you make your tea (Although here in Britain our relatively strong postal service & short journey times compared to our scandalous privatised broadband infrastructure still makes the former a much more likely option for many, but for how long?).
Generally, you can save far more money by buying digital now than you can get back from trading in or sharing physical copies. You couldn't when the Xbone first launched which is why there was a backlash. You can on Steam which is why no one ever cared, and you often can now on Xbone & PS4, which is a significant portion of modern owners have a digital-only library by choice anyway.
To be honest, I always felt the backlash against the Xbone's original DRM system was not just out of proportion but purely emotional and completely lacking in any logic. For all intents and purposes, the original proposed DRM system(With its disc-less game sharing and the like) would have given us much more freedom and ability to share our digital content than we currently have on PS4 or Xbone. In many ways I feel MS's abandoning of their original DRM system for the screeching minorities of "hardcore" console gamers represented an overwhelming step backwards for the industry & the way most people actually went on to use their consoles, and it was always inevitably going to be the system we'd adopt down the line sooner or later.
But of course, the difference here is that people now have a choice. If you want the old-style way of buying games you can still buy a disk'd Xbox and do what you want with the physical game copy. If you'd rather pay a fraction of the price and have a copy that can't get lost, damaged, worn & doesn't need physical disk swapping and the like you can do that too.
I DONT think diskless should dissapear, because we still live in a world where people have 1MBPS DSL internet connections. But I'm sure for many with 20MPS+ connections going up to cheap and prevalent 200MBPS+ connections throughout much of mainland Europe, the idea of waiting a day or two for a disk to get shipped or even hours to make the journey for the store has very little appeal when you can now often download the whole game while you make your tea (Although here in Britain our relatively strong postal service & short journey times compared to our scandalous privatised broadband infrastructure still makes the former a much more likely option for many, but for how long?).
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Dicehunter
Resident Newb
Well they aren't stopping the production and sale of disc drive equipped consoles but this does lower the price of the units making it even more accessible to a broader audience, Clever move.
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
Considering it's rumors and the fact the rumors say it's most likely just for China, it's not all that great of a move.
Dicehunter
Resident Newb
Fast internet in China is a lot more prevalent than it is in the UK or the USA so going discless makes sense as it will be more accessible to more people due to lower pricing which is smart considering there are a lot of people in China that are on very low wages.
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
There are not many Chinese games. You won't sell a console with no games.
Dicehunter
Resident Newb
From my personal experience of spending time in Malta(And I'm sure many other countries that are relatively small and remote or extremely large with remote rural areas are like this) if you want a physical copy of many modern games you basically have to buy it online from Amazon Italy or similar and get it shipped over, while any location on any of the islands has access to fairly cheap 300mbps fibre and WiFi hotspots & APs are ubiquitous. I'm sure there are many markets where this makes a lot of sense.
NeverBackDown
AMD Enthusiast
I don't think you realize how different the Chinese market is
Yep. Chinese market is the reason you have tacky RGB, oversized logos on pc parts and ... dragons
The asian market is into that sort of thing. And since its a far bigger market than US and Europe, well thats where manufacturers like MSI focus their design taste on. Their tastes completely differ to ours. Probably same for the gaming industry. I believe, (and I could be wrong) that the PC industry is far bigger than console, due to the limited language localisation of many games.
i know its wiki, but the top hit on "biggest selling console in china" returned this.
Primitive graph, but those stats are nothing like EU/US
You just provided us with a graph of console market share while consoles were banned...
The Chinese console market has existed for little more than 3 years, while there's obviously still entrenched traditions and no shift is going to happen instantly, since the ban was lifted, China has become the largest market for gaming in the world, and the major barrier for the console markets growth at the moment is pricing, which is where the cut down versions come in.
The Chinese console market has existed for little more than 3 years, while there's obviously still entrenched traditions and no shift is going to happen instantly, since the ban was lifted, China has become the largest market for gaming in the world, and the major barrier for the console markets growth at the moment is pricing, which is where the cut down versions come in.
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Well that was interesting. While I was well aware of the severe censorship going on, I wasn't aware that consoles fell in that criteria, although thinking about it now, it is quite clear as to why.
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