Digital Foundry’s John Linneman says sources have told him that Microsoft is planning to continue support for physical game discs with the aim of prioritizing backward compatibility.
The topic came up during a Digital Foundry Q&A video posted to YouTube on July 31, where Linneman raised the optimistic possibility that discs might not be going the way of the dinosaur, at least on Xbox’s side of things.
However, the reason for this isn’t necessarily due to sales numbers; rather, Linneman says that backward compatibility is a bigger priority.
“I’d heard from a couple sort of sources — and this is just kind of like potential rumor-y stuff — but at least, before the current Xbox reset, I don’t know where it is now, it sounds like Microsoft was actually very much going to continue disc support. Not because they value retail disc sales, but because they wanted to ensure that all your Xbox games were still playable on new Xboxes,” he explained.
He went on to envision a future where, in stark contrast to Sony’s future plans, Xbox doubles down on preserving physical media, even hinting at ties to Microsoft’s possible plans to digitize players’ physical game libraries.
“And it’s like, ‘We could offer maybe like an external drive,’ or basically some means, and I think that might all tie into this disc-to-digital stuff, as well. But I get this feeling that they might actually, especially given their reaction — I’m not saying they’re going to solve problems or anything drastically going to change — but I do see a future where Microsoft actually supports discs going forward, for users that want to take their library with them, while Sony just completely cuts people off.”
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