Why does the XBox One still require discs?

[Ace Morologist]

That's the real question, isn't it? If you have to install it to play it anyway and you don't need the disc once you install it, what the hell is the disc for? Couldn't Microsoft just as easily have made their entire One video game library strictly digital? No worries about the secondhand market or disc piracy there. Nor would you be able to loan games to your friends. You just download the data from Microsoft, write it onto your hard drive and there you go.

You want to rent a game just to see if you like it? Okay, for the low, low price of $5, you can download a copy of the game for 48 hours, play it to your heart's contentment and then have Microsoft delete it from your hard drive (after bombarding you with chances to pay the balance on the full price and make the game your own, of course). Okay, sure, you'd need an always-on Internet connection to make the rental system work, but you shouldn't have to have one for games you purchased.

If that's as easy as I'm making it sound -- which has got to be at least as easy as all this one-account/license-purchasing stuff was to come up with -- why do you suppose Microsoft didn't just do that?

--Morology!

 

[Maxtro]

The discs are for the people who don't want to download a 10GB+ game.

Though I'm sure every game will be available to download.

 

[Comocat]

I can think of a few reasons:

At least in the US, we dont have the infastructure to have online only devices. I can barely watch normal movies with my connection, let alone HD options. I'd need about 24 hours lead time on every game I wanted to play. So basically I'd buy the Xbox, then a couple days later I might get to play it.

Also, microsoft needs to consider retailers, if I was Bestbuy, I certainly wouldnt sell a console that eliminated and major source of my revenue (dvds and games). If you look at how badly EA implemented Origin, developers really shouldnt be in the business of trying to sell games, just make them. I imagine GameStop and companies like that pushed back pretty hard if Microsoft considered online only.

 

[XMark]

It doesn't require discs at all. Discs are just an alternate delivery method to get the data onto your system without using up a ton of bandwidth.

 

[Xarathox]

The discs are for the people who don't want to download a 10GB+ game.

Though I'm sure every game will be available to download.

You have to install them to the hard drive in order to play games, so you'd still have a 10GB+ file.

Captcha: One hit wonder. Ha!

 

[Da Orky Man]

I bought Max Payne 3 a couple of weeks ago. Four days ago, it finished downloading.

I think that ought to explain one of the problems with this system.

 

[Maximum Bert]

The discs are for the people who don't want to download a 10GB+ game.

Though I'm sure every game will be available to download.

You have to install them to the hard drive in order to play games, so you'd still have a 10GB+ file.

Captcha: One hit wonder. Ha!

Yes but there is a difference between downloading through the internet and installing it from a disc. The end result is the same but the process is different.

Retailers are also to be considered as others have said they are probably not happy as it stands with Microsofts plans but Microsoft still needs them on board at least at the start so they dont refuse to stock the console or something to that effect.

There is no doubt in my mind Microsoft want it to go pure digital because then they get maximum control and can effectively price fix but even they are not insane enough to market it as purely digital.... yet.

 

[DSK-]

We still have brick-and-mortar retail outlets, so naturally they require physical copies of games to sell, right? Personally, buying a game on Steam, having it download after 7 hours and then after trying to play it having to wait even MORE hours for the fucking thing to download 4 gigs of updates is pretty damn annoying.

Then again having said that, as the xbone is supposedly going to be 'always on' I don't see how this is a problem (in regards to digital distribution) because it's a prerequisite. The main issue will be the quality and speed of the connection, but if you've purchased an xbone you should idealy be cognizant of it's needs.

 

[Altorin]

The discs are for the people who don't want to download a 10GB+ game.

Though I'm sure every game will be available to download.

You have to install them to the hard drive in order to play games, so you'd still have a 10GB+ file.

Captcha: One hit wonder. Ha!

yes, but that 10GB+ file wouldn't be passing through your bandwidth.

Maybe you have true unlimited bandwidth, but I'd wager the vast majority of people (particularly in canada where such things are more hard to find) don't.

But that's ok. Let them spit on the plebs all they want. They're poor anyway, they're used to it.

 

[Anathrax]

I bought Max Payne 3 a couple of weeks ago. Four days ago, it finished downloading.

I think that ought to explain one of the problems with this system.

In other words, to prevent downloading games to be like Baghdad with g-strings.

 

[CrystalShadow]

The discs are for the people who don't want to download a 10GB+ game.

Though I'm sure every game will be available to download.

You have to install them to the hard drive in order to play games, so you'd still have a 10GB+ file.

Captcha: One hit wonder. Ha!

That's neither here nor there.

Firstly, the average DVD drive is already about 10 times faster than even moderately fast broadband.
Secondly, while the ability to start playing before the install finishes changes things a bit, this is a typical situation for me on PC:

-Download game from the internet: about 7-8 gb, takes about 4-5 hours to download (10 megabit broadband, assuming I don't hit a bandwidth cap due to 'fair use' rules).
-Install game: Takes anything from 10 minutes to an hour, depending on the game.
-play;

Compared to downloading, having an install disk skips step one, saving several hours. (Although perhaps not if you consider the time it took to get the physical disk.)

 

[DoPo]

The discs are for the people who don't want to download a 10GB+ game.

Though I'm sure every game will be available to download.

You have to install them to the hard drive in order to play games, so you'd still have a 10GB+ file.

Captcha: One hit wonder. Ha!

The issue isn't having 10GB taken up, it's downloading them. Exactly as Maxtro said, I'm dunno why you brought up the other option at all.

OT: Well...Maxtro did say it first. Not having to download it - it's simply not for everybody. Other people still buy disks even if DD is cheaper and/or more convenient.

 

[IronMit]

They need to sell the game somewhere. People still like buying physical copies...even if it's a 'licence' and not a game. Some people have limited internet.


Here's something to think about...what if MS does not let you 're-activate' a used game for a set period. First 3 months. And Game does not accept it until such time. So you bought a game you hate and you are simply stuck with it,

 

[MeChaNiZ3D]

Because people like discs and so they don't have to download the entire game and use up a lot of bandwidth.

 

[Da Orky Man]

I bought Max Payne 3 a couple of weeks ago. Four days ago, it finished downloading.

I think that ought to explain one of the problems with this system.

In other words, to prevent downloading games to be like Baghdad with g-strings.

I wasn't the man I used to be, and even he wasn't up to much. But I'd downloaded too much by now.

 

[Zeraki]

The discs are for the people who don't want to download a 10GB+ game.

Though I'm sure every game will be available to download.

You have to install them to the hard drive in order to play games, so you'd still have a 10GB+ file.

But you won't have to download it. Some people have bandwidth limits imposed by their providers, so they can't download large games lest they risk going over that limit.

 

[aba1]

I can think of a few reasons:

At least in the US, we dont have the infastructure to have online only devices. I can barely watch normal movies with my connection, let alone HD options. I'd need about 24 hours lead time on every game I wanted to play. So basically I'd buy the Xbox, then a couple days later I might get to play it.

Normally I would agree but Microsoft clearly doesn't care if people have Internet or not so why would they care about the quality of your net.

 

[Scars Unseen]

And let's not forget two important demographics that downloads don't work for:

1) Impulse buyers - Hard to appeal to these folks by demanding that they be at home in order to shop for games. They may have felt like looking for a game while they were at Walmart, but by the time they get home, they'll be thinking of something else.

2) Parents of gamers - May not be as comfortable spending money on something that has no tangible existence as they would a physically packaged game.

 

[lechat]

i think the real question should be why do we need disks period.
pretty sure usb sticks have established themselves as the preferred medium of data transfer

 

[badgersprite]

So that they don't completely piss off retailers, basically, and, if I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt that they actually think of how their decisions affect people and consumers, it's also because a lot of people and places in the world don't have an internet service that supports that kind of digital delivery system. Either their internet is too slow to make it feasible, or it has a cap on how much they can download and it would be ridiculously expensive under their plans to have to download files of that size.

There's also the fact that digital downloads require credit cards, and a lot of people (especially young people and low-income people) in the target demographic for games purchase them by cash so digital downloads would exclude them.