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So this is a little bit of an ad-hoc story, at present largely circling around Microsoft and the Xbox platform. However the industry does love its trends and even though Xbox is in a distant third place two generations running, one of the console holders having little to no presence in retail stores or online marketplaces like Amazon will impact the others. How something like an Xbox stand with consoles, controllers and gift cards - but no games - would resonate with your average shopper, particularly during the holidays, is also an interesting consideration.
But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here, so let's back it up a bit. As part of their legal struggles with acquiring Activision-Blizzard-King, an enormous amount of confidential data relating to Xbox was inadvertently leaked. Some of it was funny, like the amount of money Microsoft thought they would need to pay some publishers/developers to get specific games onto Game Pass. The most amusing being Larian's Baldur's Gate 3, which Microsoft thought would only cost them $5m. In comparison they believed Dragon Ball: The Breakers would be $20m and Lego Star Wars would be $35m. This, in turn, has definitely fueled journalists asking Larian's boss questions - and Larian's boss, Swen Vincke, not pulling punches.
Others were more insightful, like the revelation that 2024 was set to see "refreshes" of both the Series S and the Series X - and neither would be offering optical disc drives. This could then effectively present a scenario in which no new Xbox consoles available as new purchases would have the ability to play disc games, striking a massive blow to hobbyists that can currently play many games from all generations of Xbox consoles by simply inserting their disc to start a digital download (which requires the disc to serve as a key to boot up, but is then otherwise not used). A decent assortment of games simply aren't - or weren't - available to purchase digitally to begin with and persist only through physical media. Which will then be exacerbated further this July with the full closure of the Xbox 360 Marketplace.
Despite the source of the leak being official documents submitted to the FTC, some remained skeptical that Microsoft would actually follow through with these plans. Physical media for Sony's consoles, for example, still accounts for roughly 50% of early adoption (read: full price) sales worldwide. Additionally, many ISPs still impose data caps and circa 2021 roughly 4% of the households in the USA that reported not using the internet, did so because it still wasn't available in their area. Some math for context there: As of 2023 there were 131.43 million US households; the 2021 report says roughly 24 million (18.26%) didn't have internet in general and ~960k (0.73%) didn't have access. That's a significant market to abandon.
And if that were the entirety of the news from last year, perhaps that would have borne out. But it wasn't. In October, Best Buy announced that they would cease carrying all forms of physical media for movies. This came roughly 5 years after they stopped carrying music CDs. It was clarified that they would continue to carry physical video games, for now, however their brick and mortar offerings have been fairly anemic and their online storefront routinely clearances games - even high-profile AAA games that are only a few years old. Rumors immediately sprung up about other retailers dropping physical media, and yesterday Twitter was abuzz with news that Walmart is set to remove physical Xbox games. Beginning with Starfield, Microsoft's flagship title for 2023.
Another of Xbox's very few notable first-party exclusives, Hellblade II: Senua's Saga, was also just announced for a May 21st release date. It is to be a digital-only release priced at $49.99. How much of this has to do with the absolute embarrassment of last year's Redfall, or because Hellblade II allegedly only has an 8-hour runtime, remains to be seen. Still... there is an awful, awful lot of smoke here for there not to be a fire of sorts afoot. And as an opinion piece on Kotaku points out, it's not just Microsoft themselves that are part of this trend. Alan Wake II is digital-only, and while Baldur's Gate 3 has a physical release in the works it was not there at any stage of its staggered launch. Further it is inevitable that, after the July closure of the Xbox 360 Marketplace, Sony will resume with their closure of the PlayStation Store on PS3 and Vita in fairly short order. Will they follow suit with physical as well, particularly now that the PS5 Slim has a(n optional) detachable disc drive?
Most importantly. Am I the only one here bummed the fuck out by all this? As I've shared over the months, the physical collection my partner and I have is vast. And while we're not opposed to digital goods - most of our movies and music are digital, and it's actually debatable whether our digital games selection for Xbox is bigger than our physical collection - we do vastly prefer physical discs that we can move around. Even in this modern era where physical releases are of dubious quality, or glorified keys because you install nothing/very little and most of it is a download anyway.
Where do y'all land on this one? How would your playing/spending habits change, if at all?
But we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here, so let's back it up a bit. As part of their legal struggles with acquiring Activision-Blizzard-King, an enormous amount of confidential data relating to Xbox was inadvertently leaked. Some of it was funny, like the amount of money Microsoft thought they would need to pay some publishers/developers to get specific games onto Game Pass. The most amusing being Larian's Baldur's Gate 3, which Microsoft thought would only cost them $5m. In comparison they believed Dragon Ball: The Breakers would be $20m and Lego Star Wars would be $35m. This, in turn, has definitely fueled journalists asking Larian's boss questions - and Larian's boss, Swen Vincke, not pulling punches.
Others were more insightful, like the revelation that 2024 was set to see "refreshes" of both the Series S and the Series X - and neither would be offering optical disc drives. This could then effectively present a scenario in which no new Xbox consoles available as new purchases would have the ability to play disc games, striking a massive blow to hobbyists that can currently play many games from all generations of Xbox consoles by simply inserting their disc to start a digital download (which requires the disc to serve as a key to boot up, but is then otherwise not used). A decent assortment of games simply aren't - or weren't - available to purchase digitally to begin with and persist only through physical media. Which will then be exacerbated further this July with the full closure of the Xbox 360 Marketplace.
Despite the source of the leak being official documents submitted to the FTC, some remained skeptical that Microsoft would actually follow through with these plans. Physical media for Sony's consoles, for example, still accounts for roughly 50% of early adoption (read: full price) sales worldwide. Additionally, many ISPs still impose data caps and circa 2021 roughly 4% of the households in the USA that reported not using the internet, did so because it still wasn't available in their area. Some math for context there: As of 2023 there were 131.43 million US households; the 2021 report says roughly 24 million (18.26%) didn't have internet in general and ~960k (0.73%) didn't have access. That's a significant market to abandon.
And if that were the entirety of the news from last year, perhaps that would have borne out. But it wasn't. In October, Best Buy announced that they would cease carrying all forms of physical media for movies. This came roughly 5 years after they stopped carrying music CDs. It was clarified that they would continue to carry physical video games, for now, however their brick and mortar offerings have been fairly anemic and their online storefront routinely clearances games - even high-profile AAA games that are only a few years old. Rumors immediately sprung up about other retailers dropping physical media, and yesterday Twitter was abuzz with news that Walmart is set to remove physical Xbox games. Beginning with Starfield, Microsoft's flagship title for 2023.
Another of Xbox's very few notable first-party exclusives, Hellblade II: Senua's Saga, was also just announced for a May 21st release date. It is to be a digital-only release priced at $49.99. How much of this has to do with the absolute embarrassment of last year's Redfall, or because Hellblade II allegedly only has an 8-hour runtime, remains to be seen. Still... there is an awful, awful lot of smoke here for there not to be a fire of sorts afoot. And as an opinion piece on Kotaku points out, it's not just Microsoft themselves that are part of this trend. Alan Wake II is digital-only, and while Baldur's Gate 3 has a physical release in the works it was not there at any stage of its staggered launch. Further it is inevitable that, after the July closure of the Xbox 360 Marketplace, Sony will resume with their closure of the PlayStation Store on PS3 and Vita in fairly short order. Will they follow suit with physical as well, particularly now that the PS5 Slim has a(n optional) detachable disc drive?
Most importantly. Am I the only one here bummed the fuck out by all this? As I've shared over the months, the physical collection my partner and I have is vast. And while we're not opposed to digital goods - most of our movies and music are digital, and it's actually debatable whether our digital games selection for Xbox is bigger than our physical collection - we do vastly prefer physical discs that we can move around. Even in this modern era where physical releases are of dubious quality, or glorified keys because you install nothing/very little and most of it is a download anyway.
Where do y'all land on this one? How would your playing/spending habits change, if at all?
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), has sort of become console exclusive to anyone not willing/able to hook up their PS3 or play on PC. Lots of the games get native boosts in framerate and resolution, and it's not just literally "this game plays on the Xbone/Series" sort of deal. It's honestly the most defining trait of the Xbox platform at this point, especially as a stark contrast to Sony's lack of backcompat support for PS1/2/3, and it's a shame they 1) haven't pushed it more and 2) may be undoing a lot of it by going all digital.
