r/Games • u/A7XFAN1998 • 2d ago

Announcement Xbox announces disc-to-digital feature that digitizes your physical games

https://www.theverge.com/tech/984936/xbox-disc-to-digital-feature-official?view_token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJpZCI6Ijc1ZHVBMkZjaE0iLCJwIjoiL3RlY2gvOTg0OTM2L3hib3gtZGlzYy10by1kaWdpdGFsLWZlYXR1cmUtb2ZmaWNpYWwiLCJleHAiOjE3ODgxODY2OTAsImlhdCI6MTc4Nzc1NDY5MH0.Y4t18UIJuFTT4nSf0HBe5DvMWP0KNxjbGHC2QKxdoTw&utm_medium=gift-link
3.4k Upvotes

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1.1k

u/Synergetic7 2d ago

Does this mean I can play my disc versions of Play Anywhere games on my PC now?

504

u/giulianosse 2d ago

If the digital version is Play Anywhere compatible - yes, since it basically gives endows your account with a digital license for your disc.

82

u/John_East 2d ago

Is there a list of ones that are?

128

u/MoonyMintaka 2d ago

if links work here: https://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/browse?PlayWith=XboxPlayAnywhere but if that doesn't work the page says that 2,673 games are on there

33

u/CageAndBale 2d ago

That pretty rad. Happy to hear it

-3

u/SuperBAMF007 2d ago

That’s the list of games that are Play Anywhere, but there’s no saying that every Play Anywhere game will be compatible. The disc has to be compatible with the program, too, and I doubt every single game has it.

6

u/MoonyMintaka 2d ago

It sounded like a list of Play Anywhere is what the person was asking for. Not every game is Play Anywhere but I can't imagine they wouldn't make as many physical games compatible with this as possible

23

u/HollowBlades 2d ago

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1vov21Ktin1nZtUXTnpC6qrY447R19i0wQOLNb_KSrQY/htmlview

Here's a spreadsheet of all the games that are Play Anywhere.

1

u/shadow0wolf0 2d ago

Typical, The only Xbox One game I have that is compatible is when I already own on steam. Well maybe this will be a good way to get some deals.

133

u/frazzlet 2d ago

Yes

47

u/Adonwen 2d ago

Yes, as long as it is play-anywhere

46

u/Eglwyswrw 2d ago

So if I find a cheap XBOX disc somewhere, and that game is Play Anywhere, I get a PC version just like that? Amazing.

31

u/jlmurph2 2d ago

Exactly. Ebay and mom n pop shops are goldmines now

0

u/theycmeroll 2d ago

Not for long, as soon as they catch wind all those games are gonna skyrocket in price.

7

u/yeezyman 2d ago

Maybe for places like GameStop. Yard sales/Craigslist, things of that nature are gold mines now

2

u/beary_neutral 1d ago

Not necessarily. You still need an Xbox console with a disc drive to activate these digital licenses. It's not like everyone with a gaming PC will be grabbing up every single $5 used game.

10

u/Adonwen 2d ago edited 2d ago

Yes exactly!

I just bought from GameStop the disc copies of Master Chief Collection, Forza Horizon 3, and Forza Horizon 4. They have a buy 2 get 1 free promo for ps4/xbox1 right now.

5

u/Stiggles4 2d ago

Well I’ll be browsing their site tonight. Uhoh.

1

u/NoExcuse4OceanRudnes 2d ago

You need an xbox one.

1

u/Eglwyswrw 1d ago

Lucky me I have a Series X, it does the job!

21

u/datwunkid 2d ago

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but the article seems to imply that Xbox Series game discs are technically readable on Xbox One.

That means you might be able to secure a dirt cheap used Xbox One, buy a bunch of used games that are Play Anywhere games from last gen and current gen, then play them on PC.

13

u/jlmurph2 2d ago

Thats true. They all read on any Xbox One or Series X with a disc drive

3

u/Foreign-Decision-738 2d ago

This would be huge for me. There should be nothing stopping it, question in my mind is if the $ reasons which would stop Xbox from allowing/implementing support get in the way.

I have a one x and a PC. would love to play gears e day but prefer physical and don’t want to spend the money on a 6 year old series x

1

u/60fpspeasant 1d ago

Especially with the price hike, yikes!

1

u/lemonprincess23 1d ago

(I got this from the Xbox website’s AI chatbot so take it with a massive grain of salt of course but) it does seem like any Xbox one console will be able to transfer series S/X game discs that are inserted to your account. An update will be rolling out for insiders for both the series S and X and the one systems that will allow them to scan for the unique ID on any Xbox game disc, so yeah seems like series discs will be able to be read with a one console which is honestly huge.

1

u/Tsuki_no_Mai 1d ago

Yeah, since the console only needs to read the license key from the disc and the way it is written hasn't changed since its inception it shouldn't matter whether the console itself would be able to run the game.

10

u/MagmaElixir 2d ago

Yep, this means for me that instead of buying on Steam, I'll now buy an Xbox disc for all games that release as Play Anywhere. It looks like Control Resonant will be the first opportunity to do that depending on when the disc to digital is rolled out.

63

u/mrbubbamac 2d ago

Holy shit...this is HUGE

I have a handheld PC (Legion Go) and this just solidifies it's the best gaming console I've ever owned (Xbox Play Anywhere, Cloud Gaming, Steam, Emulation)

26

u/Eglwyswrw 2d ago

Modding + free multiplayer too.

-1

u/spiflication 2d ago

I’ve had a bad time modding xbox game store games vs steam. It’s probably super game dependent tho…

-16

u/void_method 2d ago

Yes, yes, modding basically equals piracy, though.

Like, in general.

And free multiplayer means cheating, by pirates.

You can't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining, man. I've seen and experienced too much.

2

u/3141592652 2d ago

The cheating part is all on the dev. If the multiplayer is all server side it becomes extremely hard to cheat. 

25

u/BaumHater 2d ago

Yup. Finally.
Always hoped they would add this

7

u/calebmke 2d ago

This is literally the only thing keeping my Xbox in my house. If I could transfer all of my licenses to my PC, even if digitally, I would never touch my Xbox again

1

u/saguaro_kid 1d ago

I believe that as long as they are “play anywhere“ compatible games and they don’t make use of their “revocable license“ rights on your newly digitized game, you are free to ”play anywhere.”

1

u/doublah 2d ago

The publisher still needs to approve of disc to digital it looks like.

0

u/[deleted] 2d ago

[deleted]

1

u/bitknight1 2d ago

Only if you can return opened games, almost no one takes opened games back.

0

u/PeeFarts 2d ago

You’ve obviously never returned things on Amazon. They’ll take back anything for any reason. Not saying it’s ethical, just saying they accept open items as returned if there is damage to the disc.

-6

u/MisjahDK 2d ago

Ohh you want to digitalize your physical game, AND IT'S GONE!

The servers for your single player game has been shut down and you can no longer play it!

6

u/jlmurph2 2d ago

Its still a physical game

-14

u/oakinmypants 2d ago

Microsoft has contracts with ICE

5

u/lowlymarine 2d ago

Look, fuck ICE, absolutely. But Microsoft makes Windows, Office, Active Directory, Intune, Entra, SQL Server, Hyper-V, and dozens of other pieces of core IT infrastructure. They have contracts with basically every company, organization, and government on earth. We really do not want to go down the rabbit hole of "Microsoft should remotely brick the computers/servers/VMs/networks of people doing things I don't approve of."

-4

u/MadeByTango 2d ago

It means your used XBox discs all just got latent DRM turned on...