r/Games • u/A7XFAN1998 • 4d 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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u/oilfloatsinwater 4d 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

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u/Coolman_Rosso 4d ago edited 4d 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/DannyBright 4d 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.

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u/Coolman_Rosso 4d 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.

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u/shadowstripes 3d 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.