Xbox Fans Plead With Microsoft: 'Don't Forget About Us Physical Gamers'

It's pretty obvious which way wind is blowing. And not just on Xbox.

Xbox is just way ahead in share of digital sales. But PS5 Pro already came out with BD drive as optional accessory, and I fully expect that next Xbox and PS6 will both be without BD drive out of the box with option to connect one.

And publishers will move away from retail towards style that Remedy implemented with AW2. Digital only release and then some kind of physical limited release few months after release.

@themightyant 75% console games in Europe in 2024 were sold digitally. And this number only covers AAA/AA games that tend to skew more for physical copies.

On Xbox, only 19% of AAA/AA games in Europe were sold in form of physical copies. 32% for PlayStation. Switch is holding, but digital share is also growing.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/how-digital-is-the-video-games-market-in-2024

Error in headline. Should read "Some Xbox gamers".

Never understood why a few tweets is somehow news. More on games please.

It sucks for people that want to buy physical disc games but it's the way things are going soon there won't even be a xbox to put any discs in everything including the consoles themselves will be all just streamed or downloaded!

A few vocal holdouts. They'll either need to get with the program or just be forever angry.

Here's the reality. I grew up with physical games. They do not last forever. Disc drives fail. The discs themselves degrade over time. Having a physical copy might mean you "own" the game, but it don't mean you'll still be playing it when you're 90.

Cartridges last longer but aside from Nintendo I can't see them ever being a viable format again. Even the Switch's days are number, in my opinion.

If you are collecting physical games on Xbox then you are just doing it wrong anyway.

The discs often have nothing on them bar a key for the game. With the smart delivery they often have the wrong version of the game for your console and that's before we get into patches.

It's about time we stopped making all this pointless plastic and shipping it around the world anyway.

Absolutely right and it's a middle finger from Microsoft with this Code in a Box *****.

@Medic_alert shut up. You don't seem to know where gaming started😠

The whole situation with most Xbox games got completely out of hand, it's just disappointing to realize that if want to get a physical version of the game I have to count on PlayStation.

I stand in solidarity with my disc brothers and sisters.

I’d say take whoever decided ‘code in box’ is an acceptable business strategy, throw them in a chair and force them to play Starfield or Concord for 72hrs straight, but I’ll wager the Geneva Convention forbids that sort of cruelty.

Don’t understand why Xbox can’t just team up with iam8bit or limited run to do a pre launch physical version pre order. Make it a nice package and charge maybe $80 or so. Iam8bit did a great job with sea of stars and psychonauts 2. I know limited run has its problems but Grounded and pentiment have really nice physical releases from them. Obviously the physical market is a fraction but if you make a more limited version people will still buy it. They don’t need to print millions of discs anymore. People just want options. A good comparison is the vinyl market for music. Make it a good collector's item.

@Balaam_ especially when they are charging. $95 for the steelbook. Like not even the base $70. It was a second kick in the nuts in a way

They already forgot about us.

This is one of the reasons that made me play even more on the Switch and PlayStation. Xbox is just for exclusives on Game Pass. It's also very weird because Xbox fans were always the guys saying "Xbox gives us options" when people brought the controllers with batteries in discussions. Well, there goes one option I guess. It's either digital or digital.

Newspaper/books first started digital distribution, music was next, movies went after that, and now gaming is completing the move of media to digital distribution.

People can whatever we want but physical distribution is dying off. There are people growing up not even knowing what physical distribution is. I used to do my rounds to EBGames (GameStop) and Best Buy once a month to see the latest releases. I can't remember the last time I did that for games. Have not walked in to GameStop for literally years. Best Buy the only time I go there is to see a physical sample of an electronic I am looking to buy. Then, I order online.

The other issue with physical distribution is game size. As games eclipse 150 GB more and more (for 4K games, 8k games will probable eclipse 1 TB) it requires too many disks for the games to be unfeasible to distribute physically.

I have a collection much bigger then that pictured in the article. My X360 collection eclipses 2,000+ physical games, but I saw the writing on the wall when MS started XBLA and start to move digital. My XB One collection is almost completely digital, and my XB Series collection is entirely digital. I would've preferred physical stick around but it is dying.

There are a lot of advantages to digital. I travel a lot so it is easy just to download some games to my ROG Ally and play them or now play (some of) my games on xCloud. I also have fixed XBoxes where I just download games too. Since storage is not large enough for my entire collection, digital makes it easier to put the games I want to play on my XBox. Don't have to find or have the physical disc. Just go to My Library and decide what I want to download. No matter where I am the whole thing just depends on a decent Internet connection. Which is almost always available if willing/able to pay for it now.

All I need is my Phone, ROG Ally, and iPad and a decent Internet connection and I can access all my digital media anywhere in the world!

@Nintendo4Sonic no thanks and it was in the arcades mainly.

Definitely didn't own anything then.

One other thing about digital distribution is that it is better for the environment. No manufacturing of discs, no physical resources required for distribution, no trucking those discs to stores, and no people buying those discs with physical money anymore. Everything is digitally accessed and downloaded. You are doing the environment a favour by buying your games online only.

Personally, I thing the special editions should just end. To me, there is little value in special editions without the disc. If they want to do collectibles, then they should move digital as well.

Does anyone know if the code only box still has the circle shaped slot for the disk? That would hit me straight in the OCD.

I have definitely bought more digital games over physical in the last decade but with the cost of everything going up I have got back into physical more and more this year. Games can be up to 30% cheaper day one and they drop in price much faster. Not to mention the option to trade in, resell or gift to a friend when I’m done with it, none of which can be done with a redemption code.

@MeanBeanEgg
I still believe in options. XB I think provides the most options for gamers. Especially on how and where I can play my games.

PS: I do really like the controllers having the option for batteries. Makes it easy when my rechargeables die, don't have to plug it in to the console. Just switch rechargeable batteries or put in regular batteries.

There is a reason I moved over to PlayStation as my primary console.

My PS4/5 and Switch shelves of physical games look great compared to my almost empty Xbox One/Series shelves. Why? Because Xbox abandoned me, and I moved my money to those who’d honour me.

And it’s a real shame because one of the best features of the Series X was putting in an old game and seeing it upgraded to 4K 60fps.

Xbox now is reduced to a Game Pass machine and that has even expired for me now until there is a game worth resubbing for.

I have 142 purchased games on my series x, all digital & no physical media at all. Cool if you like collecting the physical stuff but it doesn't offer me personally any benefits over digital.