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XBox (Games) Microsoft

Micrsoft Confirms Cheaper All-Digital Xbox Series X As It Marches Beyond Physical Games (kotaku.com) 72

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
Microsoft has announced a new lineup of Xbox consoles, including an all-digital white Xbox Series X with a 1TB SSD, priced at $450. The company is also retiring the Carbon Black Series S, replacing it with a white version featuring a 1TB SSD and a $350 price point. Additionally, a new Xbox Series X with a disc drive and 2TB of storage will launch for $600.

The move comes as Microsoft continues to focus on digital gaming and subscription services like Game Pass, with reports suggesting that the PS5 is outselling Xbox Series consoles 2:1. The shift has led to minimal physical Xbox game sections in stores and some first-party titles, like Hellblade 2, not receiving physical releases. Despite rumors of a multiplatform approach, Microsoft maintains its commitment to its own gaming machines, promising a new "next-gen" console in the future, potentially utilizing generative-AI technology.

Further reading: Upcoming Games Include More Xbox Sequels - and a Medieval 'Doom'.
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Micrsoft Confirms Cheaper All-Digital Xbox Series X As It Marches Beyond Physical Games More

Micrsoft Confirms Cheaper All-Digital Xbox Series X As It Marches Beyond Physical Games

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  • That sounds like a fabrication by marketing. Obviously, digital computers are digital. Well, maybe some minor components were not completely digital, but everything that matters was. Lets see how many fall for this claim.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ACForever ( 6277156 )
      All digital in this case means there is no drive on the game. All games have to be purchased and loaded over the internet. No more physical media.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jhoegl ( 638955 )
        Yup, locked into a market where there are no trade-in games to buy, but hey... you can pay $15 a month for a list of games they have control over. So, you know.... enjoy your cultivated list of 15000 games that suck and the one or two that you really want while the rest you have to wait until they decide to put them on the list.

        Enjoy curated corporate lists that will never have your sports and fighting games on it. you know, the popular ones.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by dbialac ( 320955 )
        And people wonder why I still use a PS3. There are plenty of used games out there and HD graphics are fine by me. Mine can play PS1 and PS2 games as well. I did buy a PS4 but a lightning strike killed it. I only played one game on it that was also available on PS3. The PS4 game kept running updates for multiplayer updates, which I don't play, so it was simply an annoyance sitting around waiting for an update I'd never use. 4 years later I have no inclination to buy another PS4, PS5 and probably PS6.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          FullHD is entirely fine IMO. More resolution just means more expensive everything without any real benefit. Yes, it looks nice. If you use a magnifier. But is it worth the additional cost? Not for me.

        • Question for you. If you don't play multiplayer games, why stay attached to the Internet?

          I realize I'm an outlier, but I bought an Xbox 1 used and pretty much only bought used games minus Madden 23 (which did require a system update) but more or less, my xbox does not connect to the Internet. Ever. It plays all my games just fine and will continue to do so since it never connects to the servers.

          I would NEVER buy a system that only let me buy games from the Internet. That's not what I want in a console at al

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by dbialac ( 320955 )
            Work, video streaming, corresponding with people, online billing. Stuff like that. When I lived at my previous house, I didn't buy internet at all, I just used my cell phone and tethered off of that. 5G provided plenty of speed for my needs. I don't get enough of a signal at my new house to work without it or I wouldn't have a wired connection.

            • Sorry, I should of clarified but I meant just for your gaming system. Having Internet is clearly an advantageous thing to have. I actually don't have wired Internet access though that has more to do with the cost and that I'm now single and live alone. If I had a roommate or spouse, then wired Internet would make sense as even if I wasn't home, there would be a chance it would be getting used.

              I use my phone's unlimited hotspot connection (5mb cap for download speeds, barely good enough) but I definitely mis

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Ah, I see. So a physical digital medium counts as non-digital? Well, stupid marketing speech at work, designed for stupid customers.

  • Different Places in the Transition. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Monday June 10, 2024 @10:02AM (#64537677)

    I get the desire to own physical media - and "own" it in the traditional sense. I understand the frustration that some folks feel by the pressure to give that up. I was a physical media holdout for the longest time.

    But... I've come all the way around the horn on this one. I view most media as transitory. Games and movies flow through my life, seldom to be revisited - even great ones. I no longer need to own a $25 physical movie - I owned many hundreds, and the number I watched more than twice was very, very low. I don't need those boxes cluttering up my shelves or taking space in the basement and on my NAS.

    In the event that some future wasteland of failed enterprise leaves us with only the physical artifacts left to enjoy after all digital distribution and streaming collapses, the owners of discs can laugh at me and tell me they were right.

    And should I "own" a digital distribution of a game, and the distributor or the mechanism is shuttered leaving it unavailable to me, well then, I'll do something else.

    Yes, the landscape is cluttered with moral abiguity. Sure, you could call me a shill for the media companies who are not behaving as you would prefer. It's all very awash in grey tones.

    But in the meantime, my options are more plentiful than they have never been, my shelves are blissfully unadorned by ugly blue plastic boxes, and the occasional forced obsolescence can actually help me let go of the past.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by HBI ( 10338492 )

      I think the issue remains marketing. How do you get new people drawn into your new releases if there is no physical media to act as the lead-in to the purchase of the gaming console? If not, you're selling to the same shrinking crowd.

      There is definitely money being left on the table here.

      • I was thinking about this just this morning. I really loved the Fallout game box and set (ie, Fallout 1). A great user manual that set the entire tone of the game, with a recipe in the back, written in the style of a Vault-Tec manual. Box are was good. It made you want to buy the game. Sure, the box was too big, I prefer the later smaller boxes. Some of those older Infocom games were great, with a cloth map inside, or a scratch and sniff card (probably no longer working), etc. The trapezoidal Thief b

      • Sony tried that with the PS Vita and we've all seen where that ended up. Many retailers had dust collecting on their entire stock simply because everyone thought it to be DOA. It wasn't until years after Sony gave up on it, and third parties started releasing physical titles for it, that a resurgence in new buyers appeared. (Ironically, caused by Sony stopping physical production of new game cards for it.)

        Many in the US think that children are the only ones who play games. Assuming that's true for the sak

        • It's not that you are incorrect in anything you said, but most "normies" don't even think about digital security, even today. This is double true if a kid is whining at them for something.

          At least now, you can buy those xbox or ps game cards that can be used instead of your CC.

    • owned games should not have licenses that can expire!
      if they want to call owned games then they better not be really rented ones with an time out / IP rights that can expire.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mr_jrt ( 676485 )

      I'd much rather be all digital for many of the reason you mention, but until the corporates release their vice like grip on letting me consume the content in a manner of my choosing, then physical is the way it has to be. By way of example, back in the day, a DS with a flash card was a revelation (you could carry your whole cart collection at all times, switch between them without risking losing them, backup your save games, etc), but modern legit options are crippled compared to even the physical versions,

      • Experiencing those physical objects is quite often the mental index back into your memories of your experiences of that content. You lose that with an all-digital approach.

        I do agree with this but just the same I don't think this will be going away as an option but as people are in fact putting less value on this (No reason for kids who never made that connection would gain it later, it's at it's core a nostalgia mechanism) it will naturally become mroe niche. Video games will have phsycail media for those who like, it'll just be those high-end collector edition stuff, it's just a shrinking market but it does still exist.

        Like music will always have physical media, there was

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rossdee ( 243626 )

          "Like music will always have physical media,"

          Even without the physical media, if you buy and download .MP3s you can play then on other devices, and back them up, the music distributor has no control on what you do with it. (I buy music from Amazon, but I don't use their app on any platform)

          • Yeah there's lot's of options, the HiFi crowd alone will make sure there's high quality options too, like you can buy FLAC albums https://www.hdtracks.com/ [hdtracks.com]

            Just thinking there will always be a cultural demand for physical media so it won't go away for everything. I think music and books will always have physical, movies probably will but it could go either way and it's already sorta niche.

            Video games on physical media is pretty well cooked though and has been for awhile, at least on PC (all hail our benevol

    • In the event that some future wasteland of failed enterprise leaves us with only the physical artifacts left to enjoy after all digital distribution and streaming collapses, the owners of discs can laugh at me and tell me they were right.

      All it takes is lack of Internet connectivity in your scenario. It does not require an apocalypse. Your ISP experiencing problems is not exactly a rare scenario. And that can manifest itself in other minor scenarios. For example, Xbox servers experiencing problems could means games are offline for hours to days. The store can also remove previously purchased games even if the Internet is fine as Sony did in December 2023 [gbatemp.net].

      • Well, I covered loss of access by the distributor in the post, under, "I'll do something else." And I think the same philosophy can be extended to brief or even extended internet outages. It's mostly vapid entertainment...not a pacemaker.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by skam240 ( 789197 )

          Do you have so little care for all of your purchases?

          Personally, while I make a decent wage I don't make so much that I'm fine with something being taken away from me that I have purchased for no reason I'd ever accept.

          • Of course I do not have so little care for all of my purchases. Please don't extend my argument to other domains. For instance, I own my car. If somebody said that if Toyota discontinued logins my car would stop working, I would not find that acceptable.

      • All it takes is lack of Internet connectivity in your scenario. It does not require an apocalypse.

        Whereas with physical media all you have to suffer is disc rot to make your media unusable, whether that be oxidisation of the reflective layer, UV damage or delamination of the layers, one of which is basically guaranteed to happen no matter what you do and how well you treat them.

        • And no is saying physical media is indestructible. I was merely pointing out losing digital games does not require an apocalypse level event currently. It happens all the time.
        • Overblown problem. I've been playing games from floppies, CDs, DVDs and Blu-rays for more than 30 years and have yet to find one that went bad. Also, I can back them up. I recently imaged all of my old floppy games, and do so with many of my disc-based games. I will be able to play them for the rest of my life, unless I *really* mess up my backups somehow. Meanwhile, I can no longer play The Crew no matter what I do, and so can't hundreds of thousands of others.

          And that's the crucial difference. If you can'

      • The store can also remove previously purchased games even if the Internet is fine as Sony did in December 2023 [gbatemp.net].

        I don't think the OP cares, and I don't care with him. The thing is this is entertainment. Entertainment is a concept, not a singular physical thing. Rarely do you go into the idea of being entertained with a singular goal in mind. Sony removed some content, yeah whatever (that was a dick move given their promises, but more fundamentally I'm not sure I care beyond that, I'd just watch something available for my goal of being entertained).

        The internet experiencing problems, ... entertainment transcends the d

        • Sony removed some content, yeah whatever (that was a dick move given their promises, but more fundamentally I'm not sure I care beyond that, I'd just watch something available for my goal of being entertained).

          The point you missed is that Sony can remove any and all content not just some.

          The internet experiencing problems, ... entertainment transcends the digital only world,

          Again you missed the point. He implied it would take some sort of apocalypse for digital content to be disrupted; I pointed out that it does not take much today and that it happens all the time.

        • I don't think the OP cares, and I don't care with him. The thing is this is entertainment.

          Not that you care, but the issue here isn't what the money is being spent on. The issue is that the value of that purchase is being arbitrarily set to zero by the manufacturer through technology.

          Yeah, it's entertainment whoop-de-fucking-do. Here's the thing, that technology will come for more industries than just entertainment. John Deere already did it to farm equipment, Louis Rossmann makes videos about it constantly, the wealthy made their "you'll own nothing" quip, and the public was warned about thi

    • Given and take.

      While I can see the argument for simplicity, what are you giving up for that?

      No more used games, no selling or lending games, and some else dictates the terms of the game after the sale.

      ALL media is physical, whether on your hard drive or someone elses. This is about control and further eroding consumer rights, nevermind the gaping void that will be left in the historical record when it is no longer profitable to run the servers anymore.

      • I mean, Microsoft tried to actually enable lending, and selling, of downloaded games back in the Xbox One era. They were loudly booed down for reasons that didn't make sense at the time.

        • They were loudly booed down for reasons that didn't make sense to me at the time.

          FTFY.

          The people who were booing knew full well why, perhaps you just didn't care enough to find out for yourself.

      • Well, that's a good point. I've never been one to buy and sell games, so I never considered that aspect of it.

        So I can only amend my point slightly - this view works specifically for me. YMMV.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )
      Don't forget one reason some people still buy physical games is that you can trade them in/resell them. So when they are done with the game, they can get some money back for it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      If I rent something then I expect to not have future access to it after using it. However, if I buy something I sure as heck expect to be able to use said thing whenever I want.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by klashn ( 1323433 )

      I'm kind of going through that battle now. I'm cleaning up my house, and I'm coming across all this old physical media that had sentimental value to me at one point, and now after 10-20 years, doesn't mean anything today, as most of it is available in abundance as a commodity. I don't have anything truly niche or unique, so not worth being sentimental over.

      I feel like I'm in two minds, if I'm not forced to toss it, why should I, but also, will tossing it leave behind a void, knowing that the FOMO will be so

    • I replay old games. Decades old. Why not? I also watch old DVD movies sometimes. Old games are better than most of the new crap. that said, even with GoG digital purchases, I make backup copies. That's mostly what people expect with media anyway. That even if company X goes out of business, I still have access to the media I bought from them. Sometimes I dig throug the old boxes and find something I haven't played in eons that sounds interesting (sometimes dismayed that it's floppies and not CDs).

      Th

    • And soon you will know the bliss of rooms without empty shelves. Then you will know the bliss of others living in the same space as yourself, as $company demands of you. Soon you will be freed from the burden of thought, it was never meant for you. Only $company should think, and once you accept that into yourself, you shall know the bliss of submission.


      Seriously, not sure if parent is trying to be inflammatory, or is just burnt out to the point of no-longer caring. If it's the latter, they should be mor

    • Hmm, see, I revisit stuff that's 20 years old and love it. I reread old books, watch old movies and play old games. Since I've already paid for these things, it's free entertainment.

      I may be missing out on some new stuff, but given the amount of garbage that is literally just a rehash and often times done poorly, I don't feel like I'm REALLY missing out on that much.

      I do enjoy some new stuff of course but that doesn't change the goodness of the old stuff.

    • It's not that everything is important and worth preserving, but that you never know what will be important. If you're happy living in a disposable society where other people decide when to burn your books, well... that's sad.

      People died in wars protecting our freedoms, and now we have this.

      ...and on my NAS.

      Storage is cheap. I'm always amused by people who will throw down $3,000 on some luxury carpeting in their car (under financing, of course), but they whine that an extra $75 for a backup hard drive is too much money.

      ...the occasional forced obsolescence can actually help me let go of the past.

      Y

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      I get the desire to own physical media - and "own" it in the traditional sense. I understand the frustration that some folks feel by the pressure to give that up. I was a physical media holdout for the longest time.

      But... I've come all the way around the horn on this one. I view most media as transitory. Games and movies flow through my life, seldom to be revisited - even great ones. I no longer need to own a $25 physical movie - I owned many hundreds, and the number I watched more than twice was very, very low. I don't need those boxes cluttering up my shelves or taking space in the basement and on my NAS.

      In the event that some future wasteland of failed enterprise leaves us with only the physical artifacts left to enjoy after all digital distribution and streaming collapses, the owners of discs can laugh at me and tell me they were right.

      And should I "own" a digital distribution of a game, and the distributor or the mechanism is shuttered leaving it unavailable to me, well then, I'll do something else.

      Yes, the landscape is cluttered with moral abiguity. Sure, you could call me a shill for the media companies who are not behaving as you would prefer. It's all very awash in grey tones.

      But in the meantime, my options are more plentiful than they have never been, my shelves are blissfully unadorned by ugly blue plastic boxes, and the occasional forced obsolescence can actually help me let go of the past.

      For me, the attachment to physical media was directly proportional to the terribleness of my internet connection.

      When I lived in Australia it made sense to buy a 10 GB game (or a series of a TV show) on a physical disk because downloading it took so freaking long that it was faster to get it posted from the UK (a lot cheaper than buying locally) than to download it from Steam. Now I live in the UK where fibre is cheap and fast, I can download 10 GB off of Steam or wherever in 15 mins. Most of my DVD libr

  • I know there's some serious hate here for Micro$oft, but...seriously, "Micrsoft..."? We're better than that, right? Right?

  • I could buy one for $120 bucks, or about $250 inflation adjusted. Modern consoles are too expensive. It's starting to make the suits nervous because there's no room for growth. They've saturated the market of folks willing to blow $500 on a game console. It's bad enough that the next Call of Duty is getting a PS4 release.

    Taking out the disk drive to save a few bucks isn't gonna solve that problem. I don't think there is a solution. The industry needs to start making more reasonable hardware. If Nintendo

    • Uh, most PlayStation games still get dual released on both p4 and ps5. You choose which one you want to download when you buy it or you can download both if you really want to for some reason and it stores the versions as distinctly separate applications.

      Nintendo games are very low end compared to what an Xbox or PS can play. That's why the hardware is lower end and cheaper.

      You can't have your cake and eat it, too.

      As far as digital vs having a drive goes, if I could have seen the future there is no way I

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by aitikin ( 909209 )

        ...you can download both if you really want to for some reason and it stores the versions as distinctly separate applications.

        IIRC, you can play the PS4 version of most games, get the trophies, then install the PS5 version, import your save, and get the trophies again. Pretty sure that was the case with FF7 Remake at the very least.

        • Ya, I was playing PS4 Fallout 4 on ps5. When the big update came out a few weeks ago, it downloaded the ps5 version but it didn't know about my ps4 save files so I have to "import" them. It wasn't a big deal but it didn't automatically just load my ps4 files, either. Same thing with the DLC.

          Since I fat fingered something at one point I decided it was easier to just wipe out everything. Redownload only the ps5 application bits and start over since my last go through was only 10 minutes in anyway.

          There is

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by kriston ( 7886 )

        When I installed The Last of Us Part Two, which was released as a PS4 title, it automatically updated online with PS5 features and UHD assets. Only one title is stored on the system.

  • Arg (Score:2)

    by slaker ( 53818 )

    My partner is an Xbox gamer. The fucking thing drives me absolutely insane. It needs a special headset because Xbox doesn't use normal bluetooth for voice comms. My partner almost always plays games with a voice component through discord on a PC or her phone instead... which also means she needs the in-game audio set to some crazy level so she can hear both. Thanks for nothing, assholes.

    Xbox storage is likewise a pain point. There's around 60TB of SSD storage in my home, but neither of us are down to spend

    • It doesn't need a special headset, it can use any wired headset hooked up to the controller including the free ones you used to get with a mobile phone. There are wireless headsets like the Steelseries ones for Xbox that will work both on Xbox and PC/Playstation/Switch. What you're experiencing is because of the choice she made, not because it's the only option.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by slaker ( 53818 )

        I believe it's more that the wireless headset that she HAD been using on old Xboxes doesn't work with the new one. Based on my research, I do know that it's not possible to get standard bluetooth headsets to talk to contemporary Xbox, and that by itself is enough to call it broken hardware.

        Another hilarious problem: my partner's Xbox account was created when she was a little girl. All her achievements and game progress are tied to an account in her father's name. Every time she gets a new Xbox, she has to w

  • While the price tag may seem cheaper on the all-digital consoles: you are getting less.

    Your digital content is at the service provider's whim, meaning it can disappear whenever they like, and it won't be there forever.

    There will be a day who knows how many decades from now; that only the people who got the physical media will still be able to play the old games.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Ormy ( 1430821 )

      There will be a day who knows how many decades from now; that only the people who got the physical media will still be able to play the old games.

      Decades from now most modern consoles won't be functional I'd wager. A combination of miniaturization and reduced build quality (planned obsolescence) means all those Atari 2600s still working out there today (including mine) will outlive 95% of consoles made in the last decade. I just hope emulators and torrents are still a thing in the future.

  • I've noticed that my FiOS internet connection is faster than Blu-ray when it comes to installing Xbox Series X and PS5 games. In some games I get around 35 Mbit/sec which is roughly the same speed that Blu-ray discs are read.

  • Their software updates are a full reinstall of the game instead of a diff change.... this really needs to be evolved to save time, resources, etc
    • It won't be, for technical and political reasons.

      Take any standard multiplat. You have a PC version, a Xbox version, a PS version, and for good measure let's throw in a Nintendo version. Let's also assume that the base game itself runs off of some commodity engine like Unity. How do you update the assets?

      Well, the engine itself may have an update mechanism you could use. That would generate updates for all of the platforms instantly so problem solved right? Nope.

      Keep in mind that those consoles have e

  • If they want me to rent games.... (Score:3)

    by Big Boss ( 7354 ) on Monday June 10, 2024 @12:35PM (#64538415)

    They need to charge me rental prices. I do not have much interest in a full price download only game they can revoke at any time for any reason. Yeah, no. I'll switch back to piracy then. I still have working NES carts, I can play them anytime I want. And if they don't want to run the server anymore, the whole machine is bricked? WTF? You would have a box that can only install games from a store that doesn't exist. And they want hundreds of dollars for that? No way.

    If they want to switch to a model that is all subscription, perhaps with the hardware cost getting you a year of games or something... maybe. Sucks for people that like to play old games still, as you never know if it might still be available later, but it's at least clear on the terms and the costs are more reasonable for users. They seem to want to charge full price AND kill your games and hardware anytime they want, AND kill the used market entirely because they don't make money from it. Bad deal, and the best response is to not buy it. If you buy it, you endorse it, basically. There are a TON of good games out there to play, help us all out and don't buy into this model.

  • ... than the street price of the current model including a physical drive. Essentially, Microsoft is telling customers to buy worse hardware for more money, only to depend on their mercy as to what game they might allow to play them. I mean they already forfeited in the "console wars" against Sony, but this apparent end of their console line is just embarrassing.
  • I think Microsoft has a decision to make about the future direction of Xbox hardware and Game Pass. On one hand, Sony is outselling them 2:1 and shows no signs of slowing down. Nintendo is launching a new console next year. Things arenâ(TM)t looking good when it comes to hardware. But on the other hand, the Steam Deckâ(TM)s success has inspired a flood of Windows-powered clones, and even the Steam Deck supports Windows now. These devices provide a whole new market for Game Pass and legacy Xbox ga

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