By Last year leaked documents suggested the upcoming Xbox Series X mid-gen refresh codenamed ‘Brooklin’ was going all digital – losing its disc drive in the process.
Whilst Xbox boss Phil Spencer will not discuss the leaks, he did talk about the future of physical media for the Xbox platform in a recent interview with Game File.
He tells the publication that Microsoft will follow what its customer base are doing, which is overwhelmingly going digital:
“We are supportive of physical media, but we don’t have a need to drive that disproportionate to customer demand. We ship games physically and digitally, and we’re really just following what the customers are doing.
I think our job in running Xbox is to deliver on the things that a majority of the customers want. Right now, a majority of our customers are buying games digitally.
I will say our strategy does not hinge on people moving all-digital, and getting rid of physical, that’s not a strategic thing for us.”
Across consoles in general, physical copies of games make up just 28% of games with the remaining 72% sold digitally. On PC, that ratio jumps to just 2% physical and 98% digital.
While most AAA games currently receive dual physical and digital releases, some are going all digital such as “Alan Wake 2” and the recently released “Hellblade 2”.
Spencer adds that gaming consoles “have kind of become the last consumer electronic device that has a drive” and it has become a real manufacturing issue in terms of how few are still actually building drives and the resulting costs of that.
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