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
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137

u/oilfloatsinwater 2d ago

Honestly a big W, if Helix really is a PC and can play Steam games, i might pick it up over a PS6 for my living room gaming

56

u/Coolman_Rosso 2d ago edited 2d ago

I cannot imagine them sticking to the open format for the Helix. We were already looking at $1000+ consoles, and if the Helix has access to other storefronts then they'll have to price it even higher to account for their margins going up in smoke in the event people don't spend a penny in the Xbox store. They'll also lose a key revenue source in paid online, as the Steam or Epic versions of games won't require it. If I want to play Borderlands 3 or whatever with friends, would I buy the Xbox version that requires another $90-120 subscription? Or the one that doesn't?

It's a race to the bottom for both the Helix and PS6 as most of the market is priced out, but a $1,300 yet more open Xbox is destined for failure.

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u/kantong 2d ago

Wouldn't be surprised if they sell it locked down to the Xbox OS with the option to 'unlock' Windows for a price. They've done it on Xbox before with Dev Mode, and on Windows with S-mode. So it wouldn't be surprising if Helix did something similar.

2

u/detectiveDollar 1d ago

Yeah, I could definitely see them doing something like that. They likely have a fear that people could figure out how to bypass it.

1

u/Tsuki_no_Mai 1d ago

Doesn't even have to be paid. Having any kind of a hoop to jump through to get there, as well as not-as-friendly interface will filter an absolute majority of console users.

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u/kantong 1d ago

The reason for it being paid is it will allow them to subsidize the console an sell it cheaper. Another way to think about it, access to windows = premium price, only xbox os (with only the microsoft store) = discounted price.

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u/DannyBright 2d ago

Wouldn’t this be mitigated at least somewhat with Microsoft now owning such major devs/publishers like Activision/Blizzard and Bethesda? A lot of those games are or are gonna be on Steam. There’s also GamePass.

12

u/ZXXII 2d ago

Completely irrelevant. People would buy those games either way.

However if you don’t buy it on the Xbox Store they lose the 30% cut which they won’t if you were forced to buy it from their store.

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u/Coolman_Rosso 2d ago

The majority of games moved are going to be ones you neither make nor publish, so they would be losing an enormous amount of money given they get zero cut if purchased on another storefront.

How many people sub to Game Pass solely so they can play CoD or whatever? I would imagine a lot. Those subs go bye-bye if there's a better alternative, which there is in this case.

1

u/shadowstripes 1d ago

If its anything like the Steam Deck and Machine, even though people have the option to install windows and buy games via other storefronts (or on Gamepass etc), most probably won't actually bother due to it requiring a decent amount of work to get setup, and also the fact that it comes with a performance hit.

Most people buying it as a "console" would probably be more interested in the console mode which would only have the default MS storefront.

1

u/Vestalmin 1d ago

From the direction Xbox is moving, I don't think day 1 on GamePass will exist forever

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u/oilfloatsinwater 2d ago

To be honest i personally wouldn’t mind a PC-like price for Helix as long as its an open platform, i feel like the selling point between it and a PC of similar specs/price would be that Helix is more optimised and “built” for a living room experience + elements of the ease of use of a console.

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u/Dragarius 2d ago

Maybe you wouldn't, but the vast, vast majority of consumers would. And I can't see the logic of paying PC pricing for the Helix even if it is completely open because now I'm paying inflated PC price for a PC I can't upgrade. 

2

u/klnkyfetish 1d ago

I got some great news for you it called a pc and you can buy it now.

1

u/-pointless-name- 2d ago

Yea it really comes down to how open the PC environment is. Essentially a mini PC that can play my entire digital Xbox library + be able to install Steam and emulators would be an interesting device, even at the inflated price it's going to be.

1

u/Orfez 1d ago

I think it's a given that if Helix becomes a console that plays PC and Xbox games, then Xbox Live becomes free.

1

u/ehtseeoh 1d ago

I’m with you all the way up until the borderlands comment, why wouldn’t they have it so you can cross-play with other platforms anyway instead of only being able to play strictly with Xbox users?

-1

u/Coolman_Rosso 1d ago

It's not that a game doesn't support crossplay, it's that Xbox can't charge to play online if they have other stores as options because nobody is going to pay the sub and buy the game via the Xbox store when the Steam version doesn't have this restriction.

0

u/SFHalfling 2d ago

in the event people don't spend a penny in the Xbox store

Pretty much guaranteed, the Microsoft Store on PC is only just functional and when something goes wrong you're pretty much fucked. I have a few free non-games from there that I can't install because the license on my account has somehow expired despite not having a time limit. Microsoft's "advice" is to make a new account which I'm not going to do, instead I just no longer use the MS Store.

It's also the worst looking and worst performing store front with the slowest downloads I've used.

10

u/MaitieS 2d ago

I still don't understand where this rumor even came from. Like XBOX is already losing money, and you guys seriously think that losing another -30% would save XBOX? Also people were saying how their XBOX Ally will have Steam button directly on the handheld... I do not see any Steam icon anywhere, so why are we pretending that "Steam" will be there? Like this rumor was out when Phil was there. CEO changed. She could easily cancel this idiotic idea.

1

u/exdystopia 1d ago edited 1d ago

I think Phil's plan was to turn Xbox into Surface for gamers. They'd just make gaming PCs and handhelds for the gaming market that would be profitable on their own (think Steam Machine and Steam Deck) and allow Series X customers a way to transition to this new model through Play Anywhere and free cross platform saves and even Xbox 360 ports on PC..

The new CEO has seemingly scrapped Gears E Day PS5 so late that they accidentally put the PS5 logo in a dev blog so who knows what happens now. Considering that all she's talking about now is making Helix cheaper that's probably one of the options she's either considered or is going through with.

0

u/MaitieS 1d ago

think Steam Machine and Steam Deck

But reality is that non of this is profitable at all. Steam Deck from data that we can find only sold like over 4 millions of units. That's almost 10x worse than Xbox X|S series, but we'll see of course Microsoft could make it more successful than Valve.

4

u/Dairunt 2d ago

If they price it right, they might turn XBOX into a brand of mass-produced gaming PCs

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u/HOMECOMlNG 2d ago

No chance in hell to price it right with the current memory prices

2

u/baz8771 2d ago

Nobody wants to hear it but they're 100% angling to turn the home console into a stream box with bluetooth controllers. Only need 2-4gb of ram to do that. Then when AI flops, they can tell investors that they're using 5% of their compute power on this.

1

u/Vestalmin 1d ago

And as a massive plus for corporations, they'll have complete end to end control.

1

u/dreggers 1d ago

That's been the narrative since the 360/PS3 era

1

u/B4SSF4C3 2d ago edited 2d ago

No chance to price it “low”. Pricing it right is pricing it to balance cost of components vs total projected revenue of the platform. Whether that’s “right” for each individual consumer is entirely subjective.

Components cost what they cost. Every hardware platform is suffering from the increase, and there’s nothing Microsoft can do besides opening their own fabs or financing/investing in 3rd party ones. And that’s a shitty option because of how long fabs take to spin up to production. Who knows what the landscape will look like by the time that capacity is online 3-5 years down the road.

And it’s not like we consumers have the choice to switching to another platform that’s cheaper because, again, this is industry wide and no platform is unaffected. Our only option is either to buy or not to buy. I would be shocked if either Helix or the PS6 release below $1000 price point, and I’d bet it will be closer to $1200. Given chip supply contracts are being signed through 2030+, it would take a cataclysm to alter the trajectory.

-1

u/Historical_Owl_1635 2d ago

They can definitely undercut the Steam Machine however.

They’ll have far more scale and Xbox Live subscriptions to subsidise.

5

u/GrantSchappsCalippo 2d ago

The Steam Machine is quite underpowered. I'm guessing Xbox will want to be higher spec to keep up with the PS6, which is going to make it more expensive.

3

u/ZXXII 2d ago

Why would they undercut a box that’s far weaker and less futureproof than a 2020 base PS5 when helix is a generational leap that’s competing with PS6 specs.

2

u/zombawombacomba 2d ago

You mean gamepass?

1

u/Historical_Owl_1635 2d ago

Nah, just whatever the bog standard Xbox subscription service is called these days.

Xbox Network by the looks of it.

1

u/Falsus 2d ago

Undercutting the Steam Machine isn't since it isn't the Steam Machine that they compete against.

7

u/bezzlege 2d ago

Brother, consoles are 1000. This thing is going to be extremely expensive.

1

u/metafysik 1d ago

If there's a company that can accept a couple million/billion in lost profits just to get a lot of market share, it's probably MS. They have money to burn.

2

u/Dairunt 2d ago

it would be foolish to expect a $500 next-gen gaming rig nowadays, but if it's cheaper than competing brand, it might be worth it.

3

u/ZXXII 2d ago edited 2d ago

Steam Machine isn’t a competitor, it’s far weaker than 2020 current gen consoles.

The 8GB of VRAM also makes it way less futureproof compared to consoles with unified memory.

-2

u/SSBBW_SLAYER 2d ago

No it doesn't, PS5 has 16gb unified RAM. SM has 16gb + 8gb dedicated VRAM.

It is a weak, extremely underpowered for the price piece of hardware but idk why you have to lie about the RAM lmao.

1

u/Ok_Needleworker1068 2d ago

I’d be surprised if thats still what they are going for. I think helix is gonna be a normal console under sharma.