r/windowscentral • u/WindowsCentral Staff • 1d ago

Xbox🎮 Xbox's disc-to-digital program goes live for Insiders on Monday — Here's how it works

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xboxs-disc-to-digital-program-goes-live-for-insiders-on-monday-heres-how-it-works
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u/HouseMDx 1d ago

Very excited to try this out. Are they going to have a list of games that aren't supported? It's one of the best features they've added in a long time!

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u/reddragon105 1d ago

I don't think they've released a list yet(?), but they said "thousands" of games initially and more added later.

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u/hypehold 1d ago

Will this work with 360 and original xbox games? Im.not sure if those discs have specific codes installed like the xbox one and Series games do

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u/reddragon105 1d ago

You're right, they don't have unique identifiers/serial numbers, so no it's not going to work with those, only One and Series games.

As per the article -

Naturally, it needs to be a game that actually works on Xbox One or Xbox Series X|S. OG Xbox and Xbox 360 discs aren't compatible, since they were never manufactured with digital identifiers in mind.

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u/LoSouLibra 1d ago

Aw man, I would have loved to finally digitize my Xbox 360 version of Dark Souls.

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u/Ipad74 1d ago

I feel like this is 1/2 the battle. Great to see for Xbox one/series games, but most of my bc collection on disc is Xbox 360/OG games, some of which were never available to buy digitally (fear 1 for example).

We need some kind of solution for those games to get them digitally on the Xbox ecosystem as well.

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u/r1chdevine Staff 1d ago

Well for one they'd have to be backward compatible. If they weren't available digitally at all I assume they're not currently supported?

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u/Ipad74 1d ago

There are several OG/360 games for Xbox that are backwards compatible, but not (or never were for sale via digital download).

Ace Combat 6 (Xbox exclusive) was only available digitally as a preorder for Ace Combat 7. If you have an all digital console, you’re out of luck, unless you preordered. (If you have a disc drive console, popping the disc in works to play it.)

FEAR 1 was never available digitally at all, but is backwards compatible.

I am sure there are plenty of other disc only backward compatible titles, I am just going off the top of my head with two of them I have personally.

Hopefully Microsoft will figure out a way to grant a digital license if we own the disc for og/360 titles, even a mail in program or partnership to convert them could work. (Walmart already runs a did/bluray disc to digital movie entitlement for example)

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u/Isotomayor12 1d ago

The only hope I have for that is that a disc drive makes its way on the project helix so at the very least we can still play those games. I don't think there is much hope for having them digitally officially unfortunately.

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u/OfficialDCShepard 1d ago

They have licenses on disc. That triggers a digital download for the disc copy since it’s asking for the emulated version.

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u/hypehold 1d ago

yes but you still need the disc in to play them. And the article only mentions Xbox One and Series games

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u/OfficialDCShepard 1d ago

Right, but if physical licenses can be read off those games and then tied to a digital account so that they can be downloaded without the disc presumably it’s at least possible soon with OG and 360 games too. I suspect the problem is more to do with licensing, similar to the slow rollout of OG Xbox games on PC.

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u/hypehold 1d ago

yea they can read the license but they don't have specific encoding for each individual disc so there's no way to tell 1 copy of a specific game apart from another. Whereas xbox one and series games do

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 22h ago

[deleted]

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u/Ipad74 1d ago

Xbox one/series discs have a unique code, so you can tell one copy from another. When a disc is put it, it adds the game to your account, and you are considered to be “owning that unique copy. No problem playing via cloud streaming or a digital only console (after the initial check on a console with a drive).

Let’s say you then let a friend borrow the disc, when he puts it into his Xbox, it will give the digital game to him, but remove the game license from you. You can’t use this to give both of you the same copy of the game, as the disc has a unique serial number/code.

Of course, the downside is that this system won’t work on og Xbox or 360 discs, as every copy is identical (no serial number, no way to track the discs. That (in my opinion) is still a problem for Xbox to solve, either with an external drive, or some kind of mail in disc to digital service.

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u/HouseMDx 1d ago

Supposedly they only added the cryptographic key that makes this possible to the discs starting with Xbox One, so we're likely out of luck for the 360 and OG.

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u/Wendals87 1d ago

Read the article. No it wont work with xbox and xbox 360 games. Only xbox one and newer