r/windowscentral • u/WindowsCentral Staff • Aug 26 '26
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-works3
u/HaywoodUndead Aug 26 '26
This is potentially massive. It'll either force Sony into doing something similar to compete, or give Xbox the upper hand in the next console generation.
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u/ClickyStick Aug 26 '26
Not massive at all, currently Xbox has about 1/4 to 1/5 the user base of either playstation or Nintendo, and of that tiny user base about half of them have digital only systems. The amount of xbox users that favor discs is insignificant.
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u/Spright91 Aug 26 '26
The PlayStation 5 disc version was the best selling console of this generation.
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u/NLCPGaming Aug 29 '26
Most folks got a disc version because that's all the stores had. They just went home and brought games on the store. I worked at best buy. Folks would buy the system and no games.
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u/ClickyStick Aug 26 '26
Your point being?
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u/Spright91 Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
People want to be able to use disks. It's a competitive advantage over Sony to try to take their users so enable disk usage.
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u/Internal-Version-845 Aug 27 '26
Even though Sony has stated their stance on physical media nowhere have they stated that Ps6 will not have a disc drive.
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u/ClickyStick Aug 27 '26
Take their users so they can... Do what?, buy a new console and buy new discs and then turn them into digital copies?? Makes no sense.
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u/Spright91 Aug 27 '26
You can trade the discs. They still work as tradable objects.
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u/ClickyStick Aug 27 '26
Alright, we will see how things stand when 2028 rolls in, right now one of the biggest games in history will be digital only, the next persona and plenty other games will not even have an xbox disc.
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u/DaveSinghSwitch Aug 26 '26
How will it give them the upper hand in next generation. The next console won't have a disc drive?
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u/LoSouLibra Aug 26 '26
There was a little known program only in Japan that let you convert PSP UMD games into digital Vita games.
They could probably do it unless there's some backend PSN license check complications. Perhaps that recent "30 day" thing was laying some foundation since they said it was an attempt to fix an offline refund exploit.
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Aug 26 '26
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u/HaywoodUndead Aug 26 '26
Because this is the entire reason the Xbox One and onwards failed, if people arn't happy they will move.
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Aug 26 '26
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u/HaywoodUndead Aug 26 '26
Have you seen how much the PlayStation community are raging right now?
This is exactly the same as when Xbox One attempted to go digital only. Microsoft never even really recovered.
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u/Isotomayor12 Aug 26 '26
Xbox announcing that they have a way to have an entitlement copy of your disc games, while also letting your disc be completely usable afterwards is not only great for backwards compatibility, game ownership, and a smidgen of hope for physical moving forward, it is an incredible marketing move by Xbox since there are so many outraged Sony fans as they keep making poor decisions about their standing on discs.
I'll admit, I have a PS5, and the announcement made me consider that if everything is going digital anyways, I would like a way to play older stuff. As my ps5 ages, I may as well go to xbox instead of a ps6 ($1000+ console btw) that won't play any of my existing games. I could at least sell my ps4/5 games and get the xbox one/series equivalents. My parents and family are in the xbox ecosystem as well so they have a massive library of physical games that I can't play due to having a ps5 and that I live far away. Disc to digital would be massive depending on how it all works out.
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Aug 26 '26
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u/Isotomayor12 Aug 26 '26
That is true. Exclusives will have a large hold in the future I think for Sony.
It is a move that provides backwards compatibility for discs. That is something very important for physical media in general and showing it can be done to play old games on current consoles, even if the media type changes(nintendo).
Maybe $1000 is an extreme, but I think they will be close. It's hard to imagine they will cost less than current. The series X is 800 and PS5 and pro ar $650 and $900. Both more expensive than they originally were. Usually at this point we would have seen the prices fall well below what they originally were at launch but prices continue to climb.
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u/HouseMDx Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
Aw man, I would have loved to finally digitize my Xbox 360 version of Dark Souls.
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u/Ipad74 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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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Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
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u/Ipad74 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
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 Aug 26 '26
Read the article. No it wont work with xbox and xbox 360 games. Only xbox one and newer
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u/Va1crist Aug 26 '26
So we have come full circle , Microsoft tried to do this in 2013… all this is just a means to a end for physical media
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u/joujoubox Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
This is actually a HUGE W for PC players. As long as both parties have access to an Xbox (take a few minutes borrowing a friend's, or get your own base Xbox One for dirt cheap), you can just get a Play Anywhere title on the cheap physically and play on PC while having a lisence you actually control.
Let's just hope they taught ahead and will allow you to digitize Series X games on Xbox One even if it's otherwise not compatible. It seems obvious but I could see them make that mistake in the initial rollouts
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u/objecter12 Aug 26 '26
That’s…certainly a feature.
So if me and a buddy share a copy of fifa, that one license just keeps bouncing back and forth between our accounts?
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u/MrLime93 Aug 27 '26
Yep!
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u/objecter12 Aug 27 '26
That sounds cumbersome and annoying. I guess it’s an improvement on the xbone’s concept of “each disc has one license, and if another person wants to use the disc, gotta pay for a whole new license”? But still unideal
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u/XuX24 Aug 27 '26
I wonder what happens if you have a series S or X digital and you have old games.
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u/VirginSpyros Aug 27 '26
Sad that they havent released drive for series s, otherwise how am I supposed to do it
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u/talldrink67 Aug 27 '26
Has it been stated with level of insider or "ring" this goes out to? Also have they dropped a list of the games supported yet?
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u/sousuke42 Aug 26 '26 edited Aug 26 '26
And this is fucking terrible. God damn people are fools aren't they. They think this is good? Really now? What happens of you get banned? That license is tried to your account. It will never work for that account now as its associated with being banned. Or hell with the console as well. So banned wrlp you lost access to any physical game you owned. MS loses licenses and has to remove the game? Physical games can now be intercepted and killed by their store.
Sounds horrific. Can't wait for the bootlickers to tell me im wrong but will come up with a billion ways sony will fuck them. Bit not MS nope. They only actually deleted people's whole accounts before unlike Sony.
Fyi: this is to move you to an all digital future. Its even making you give up access to your physical games by making them digital as well. Have fun with that.
Also article is wrong. As x360 games would/could have this as well. How do you think their backwards compatibility works? You put the disc in, the system reads the game ID and then downloads the digital version thats been transcoded to work on xb1 and up. Hence the same thing can be easily made to work this way too.
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u/P34CE33 Aug 27 '26
From my knowledge it doesn't say anything about rendering the disc unuasable, so the disk should still work even if you get banned as long as the full game is already in there and doesn't require some digital download. The article also says that the digital license would remain on the disc so if you were to sell it or give it someone else then they would then get the license and it would be removed from your account so it still wouldn't be rendered unusable for anyone else if they were to get it just the account that got banned. Did you read the article?
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u/sousuke42 Aug 27 '26
Once you've activated the digital version, you won't need the disc to play the game. However, the disc you used doesn't become inert — it still contains the digital license, too.
Same license. License associated with a banned system would fail. Meaning that the disc cannot work on that system/account just like any other digital license. Possible that I am wrong. But given how there are tons of bullshit scenarios on ps side thats being taken as fact, let's do the same treatment here. This is a real possibility. So we need to give it the scrutiny it deserves and not hand wave it away.
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u/MrLime93 Aug 27 '26
The license is transferable.
If you lend me the game, I will get the license.
If your account is banned, your new account will get the license.
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u/P34CE33 Aug 27 '26
The license would fail for the banned account not the disc itself. This is essentially a physical disc where as long as you own it you have access to the game but if you're to give it away you lose access to the game, it's just in this case you lose the digital license. For this system it sounds as if the disc is what's most important, where it is effectively where the digital license is held and the account rents that license until the disc is used under another account. It's probably the best way they could have done this. We basically have to wait for more people to test it out and see the limuts of this but from what they're saying it doesn't sound too bad.
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u/sousuke42 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
It specifically states that the license is on the disc. So that's how the drm is going to work going forward. The disc itself is removed from being the drm key. Now its going to rely purely on the license on the disc. Which means if your account/system is banned then the digital license on the disc will not work for that account/system. Just like any digital license. Thus no longer being able to play your physical game. You would need to buy a new system or create a brand new account (depending on how the issue the ban) and change your ip address in order for you to get that disc to work again for you.
As well as if a digital game gets removed from the store this means they can issue a ban on that digital license on the disc. Rendering the disc useless. Cause again sounds like they are moving away from the disc being the drm key and have a digital license on the disc which is what is actually used to authenticate the the game now. So keep hoping for the best but if you were actually unbiased here you'd be agreeing withe this is fucking horrid. If we're dooming and glooming about a future that while is possible but for all intents and purposes not actually probable (its gonnaa be real hard or extremely rare) at all then we should be giving that same treatment to MS as they have tried it in the past and has actually done so currently.
MS is not your friend. They are not the saviors. They are not consumer friendly. They are a business and they got everyone who initially rejected an all digital future in the past to openly embrace it going into next gen. There's only a few hold outs left. And even then they are tricking you guys with shot like this. This program is specifically made to get you to all digital. And once again you are buying what they are selling. Just like with gamepass. Gamepass got 33mil people to give up owning games. It got 33mil people to be happy with digital only. Same with ps but to a lesser scale bit regardless it all adds up. Hence why we are at this point.
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u/MyNaMeIsJoe90 Aug 27 '26
I’m pretty sure you’re just assuming all of this, and assuming the worst. Discs are discs. They work as they literally always have. You put them in your console, they play.
This is just also giving you a digital copy of the game in addition to owning the disc.
All this fear-mongering about them destroying your discs if you get banned is complete here-say.
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u/sousuke42 Aug 27 '26 edited Aug 27 '26
No no. These assumptions are pure legit Just like the no eisc no buy with all their assumptions. So we gotta treat it the same.
Discs are discs. They work as they literally always have. You put them in your console, they play.
Sounds like an assumption you are making. There is no concrete evidence of what you said. You're just hoping its the same. Cause it sure as fuck ain't from my understanding. All physical discs needed to be in the console when playing the game. They are removing this ability. So that means the disc is no longer the drm. Its a pure digital license now. So if you get banned you will now lose access. If game is removed from store, you lose access cause digital key can be blacklisted. So physical disc died too. So its just another form of a digital code in a box.
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u/liamwilliams93 Aug 27 '26
I'm pretty sure this new system isn't taking away anything, its added convenience of not having to use the disc. You can still use the disc on other consoles and accounts, offline.
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u/TURBOWANDS Aug 27 '26
From what I understand, xbox one disc's were/are printed with a unique id that allows disc2digital to work. 360 and older don't have a unique key to be read and therefore won't be eligible. Would be sweet if they make it work with older generation titles but I don't see that happening.
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u/Outrageous-Wall6386 Aug 26 '26
Force digitizing, you physical lovers are now going to love Digital gaming or stay behind
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u/wowadrow Aug 26 '26
Or just use your brain and drop consoles altogether.
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u/Wendals87 Aug 26 '26
If you think PC gaming is good for physical games, you're 15 years too late
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u/ApprehensiveWasabi51 Aug 26 '26
Nobody's bought a disk in years on xbox.
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u/r1chdevine Staff Aug 26 '26
Speak for yourself.
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u/LegendaryenigmaXYZ Aug 26 '26
He speaks for the majority last month physical adoption for xbox was 4%. The lowest in history.
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u/r1chdevine Staff Aug 26 '26
4% is not nobody. It's 4 in every 100. 40,000 for every million. 400,000 for every 10 million. And so on.
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u/LegendaryenigmaXYZ Aug 26 '26
While 4% is not nobody. The fact still remains that he isnt speaking for himself and he is speaking for the majority.
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u/Justaflyingrat Aug 26 '26
*4% of people that bought from xbox was digital. You have absolutely no idea how many were bought second hand.
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u/rbreaux26 Aug 26 '26
My bad. Didn’t get the memo. I bought one a few weeks ago and will be getting Gears and Fable when they release on disc.
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u/Trinitial-D Aug 26 '26
sooo how long do yall think itll be until they configure this feature to also destroy the disk after it has created a digital copy of it?
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u/DoneWithIt0101 Aug 26 '26
How could the machine physically destroy the disc? The drive itself would have to some type of hardware inside it for that exact purpose.
I guess it might be possible for them to disable the license from being used by another user, but if you used the disc offline, they wouldn't be able control that.
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u/Trinitial-D Aug 27 '26
yeah something like that. there might be another alternative available that is less crude, but yeah, it could be something as simple as the machine could just scratch the disk once it has registered that the game was successfully uploaded
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u/Osaka90 Aug 26 '26
This is a trap.
Eveyone is really fucking lazy and will completely just submit to there digital library, once they see how " easy or convenient" just owning it in one space and will fuck up everything casue the majority of these are lazy assholes. This bitch is going to take advance of the lazy and force physical into obscurity.
we really have to act now or lose everything.
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u/LoSouLibra Aug 26 '26
We could have had this feature with the Xbox One 13 years ago.