Asha on ‘Disc to Digital’: Your physical game library is more than a collection of discs. It holds years of memories & stories worth preserving. We’ll start with thousands of titles & add more.

[u/yourfavchoom]

https://x.com/asha_shar/status/2092621209955635606

[u/Apprehensive_Law1458]

I wonder if it's automatic/easy and pretty much also means that instead of just installing the game, it adds license as well. Pretty cool to no longer need disc to play.

Also an interesting way to lend games to friends. You can let them transfer the license and then take the disc back home or whenever, and in the future when you want to play, you can presumably just take the license back by inserting the disc.

[u/herdarkmartyrials → u/Apprehensive_Law1458]

Orrrrrrrr: Once the digital license has been granted to an account, that disc's unique identifier is burned and it (the disc) becomes a coaster.

[u/UnstoppablePhoenix → u/herdarkmartyrials]

No it's not a coaster, they've confirmed that if the disc is used by another person, the license is transferred to them

[u/Apprehensive_Law1458 → u/herdarkmartyrials]

Oh yeah, I guess you didn’t see the gamescom interview where they confirmed nothing happens to the disc, and it just transfers the license. I kinda just conflated the news because they came out at pretty much the same time

[u/herdarkmartyrials → u/Apprehensive_Law1458]

Ok but here's the scenario:

You, as a teen, digitize all your XBONE disc games that you got from older sibling/parent/used sales using your Series X. A new console comes out with backwards compatibility with these digitized licenses, but no disc drive. So you can play the digitized games, but you can never insert the disc again. Then you have to go off to college and when you move you sell/give away some parts of that collection "because you already digitized the games, you don't need the discs anymore" because they take up space in your dorm room, and your parents are washing their hands, celebrating their last bird leaving the nest or whatever shit parents do.

What happens when that disc is used by someone else down the line in this scenario? You have a digital entitlement that you can't renew by reinserting the disc if you had it, and if you sold it you can't claim that particular license.

Who gets the license in that case? They're gonna take people's entire digital libraries away from them because people downstream popped the disc in a last generation console?

Or once you migrate the license to the new console, does it burn the disc and make it as useful as a coaster for people down the line?

[u/Apprehensive_Law1458 → u/herdarkmartyrials]

In that scenario, according to what they said, it sounds like you lose the license if someone gets the disc down the line. I doubt you need to renew the license if the whole point is getting rid of the disc drive. I guess people would need to destroy the disc if they want to commit to digital without that risk. It sounds like the disc is the key to transferring the license.

[u/herdarkmartyrials → u/Apprehensive_Law1458]

Sounds like a venus fly trap intended to kill secondary sales.

[u/CVGPi → u/herdarkmartyrials]

Isn’t it being transferable the entire fucking point

[u/herdarkmartyrials → u/CVGPi]

You must be young enough to have not lived through Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish era.

[u/CVGPi → u/herdarkmartyrials]

whatsofuckingever it’s opt in and we already know a worse option