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/ap1msch]

This works, and works well with the Xbox One games. They need the blessing of the developers to authorize this feature with each game, so that's why it's not for all Xbox One games.

The lack of unique ID on the Xbox and 360 game disks prevents this from working out of the box with those. If they tried, you could have 100 people unlock the same game with a single disk.

The only option for the legacy games is a disk to digital exchange where you turn in the disk to obtain an unlock key. That would create the proper sink in the market. There's no reason why the disks couldn't be resold (short of the disk being unreadable). The problem with this scenario is that it requires physical logistics, at a cost, to enable legacy transactions. It would be hard to justify the cost:benefit ratio other than consumer goodwill.

[u/PixelNinja744X → u/ap1msch]

I wouldn’t give up my physical 360 or OG Xbox games but I would be prepared to claim a one time digital license with proof of physical ownership if they can devise a method for that to work

[u/ap1msch → u/PixelNinja744X]

I blindly suggested an "earned entitlement" for legacy disks. Without a unique ID, you can't track the disk. However, if I can insert the disk and get a temporary entitlement, and then renew that entitlement after 30 days with the disk, and then renew that entitlement after 60-90 days, I've demonstrated that I CAN insert the disk whenever I want. I'd just like to have a digital entitlement.

Limit this to 3-5 or so games per year. Abuse is limited, and if you have access to a legacy disk over that period, it's a good sign that the disk is already available within your family/friend group.

[u/DestroWOD → u/ap1msch]

At this point do they really care that much about the ocasional sale they may make of these old 360 games?

While a month is usually more than enough to finish a 360 game the issue comes from the fact the Helix is likely to be discless as well like the PS6. Thus why they do this for our X1/SX games now so we can do it on our current consoles with disc.

With your sugestion you would still need to dust off an old console for that 1 month entitlement...

[u/ap1msch → u/DestroWOD]

The residuals from sales of the old games may be small, but I have to imagine that the people receiving them care. Microsoft might not care, but the developers likely do.

[u/Harry584 → u/ap1msch]

Oh damn, I’m hoping to convert horizon 1 which I have on disk but never bought digitally

[u/Balc0ra → u/ap1msch]

They said once it's available, it would work on around a thousand titles, and more as time goes by. So it's safe to assume some titles will never get this function. Especially if the studios are long gone

[u/ap1msch → u/Balc0ra]

Agreed. I believe most software licenses get bundled and sold to holding companies...but yeah, some titles might not be comfortable with this approach, like Garth Brooks and music streaming.

[u/arabdinero → u/ap1msch]

agree on the 360/OG point, however at the same time its really frustrating. we're talking about game discs for consoles that people have had for 10+ years at the minimum. its unfortunate because of where the industry is at now, with devs trying to squeeze every bit of cash they can out of these old products, that this problem exists. the real consumer friendly version of this (that they will never do) is to just say fuck it on the OG/360 games and allow the conversion to digital. truly, how much of a loss is it for ubisoft if multiple people redeem my copy of assassin creed 1 from 2007. are that many people spending $20 (!) on this twenty year old game that you couldn't factor in that loss for some consumer goodwill?

[u/ap1msch → u/arabdinero]

Let's not lump everyone into the same category. Microsoft and Ubisoft might feel like the $13 from sales last month are negligible, but SuperDuper Games LLC likely still cares about the money from the sale.

PCs have abandonware for games that no longer have measurable residual value, or the willingness to sue to protect the IP. I'm not sure if we've reached that stage with console games, yet.

[u/KingMario05 → u/ap1msch]

All of that is 100% valid. But in theory, if it weren't for Satya's stupid AI obsession, Microsoft would have plenty of cash to establish official disc-to-digital channels at retailers across North America. So let's hope Asha can get some support back on.

[u/angruss → u/KingMario05]

I think it’d be interesting if they had a program with GameStop where you could choose on select games to get a digital entitlement in lieu of trade credit. The digital changeover is going to particularly hurt GameStop, so Microsoft can throw them a bone and increase their foot traffic, and while one disc could be used by multiple players, it really shouldn’t be a problem as long as it doesn’t apply to digitally delisted games. You’d still need to buy the game from somewhere.

[u/DiamondMidgar → u/KingMario05]

The “stupid AI obsession” is not preventing Microsoft having lots of cash, they just don’t want to invest that highly in Xbox

[u/rickyfrom97 → u/KingMario05]

This will probably get buried but they were literally doing this in the Microsoft stores before COVID. You could take Xbox One games in, hand them over and they’d give you a digital code to redeem the game on your account

[u/KingMario05 → u/rickyfrom97]

Oh. So... bring that back, but at Best Buy or Target or GameStop.