Xbox has formally introduced its disc-to-digital feature, which will allow Xbox discs to provide a digital version of the same game with all the benefits of a digital copy.
With this feature, Supported Xbox discs (most of Xbox One and Xbox Series games will support this) can just be inserted to an Xbox, and you can gain a digital copy of the same game. Features like Xbox Play Anywhere (which also gives you another extra copy for PC) and Xbox Cloud Gaming, if supported by the game’s digital copy, will then be available.
Xbox pitch this as “part of our broader commitment to game preservation” so that players can still have access to their physical games into the future, a future that’s likely all-digital, similar to PlayStation.
No word on how the feature works should another account tries to claim the digital copy from the same disc. However, the disc should still be able to play games normally should one choose to.
“Thousands of titles” currently support this feature. It’s currently being rolled out to Xbox Insiders first.
The games industry is likely heading to an all-digital future. On the consoles side, PlayStation is the first to proclaim this, Nintendo has been making Game Key Cards for Switch 2 which despite its physical appearance, is basically a transferable digital download code in physical form. And now Xbox is making sure owners of physical Xbox discs, which are hard to come by in Southeast Asia as most publishers skip producing discs here considering only Singapore is where Xbox consoles are ever sold officially, can transition into a digital future with their backlog carried over.
It’s important to remember that PC has basically switched to be an all-digital format for at least a decade thanks to the ubiquity of Steam as a digital games distribution platform.