All digital, discless Xbox One S is arriving soon
So where is the PS4 version?
Microsoft is testing the future of console gaming in Europe by releasing an Xbox One S that lacks any kind of disc drive. That means no Blu-ray movies and certainly no Xbox One games that come from retail. Instead, gamers will download everything they want from the Xbox Game Store. Romain Dillet from TechCrunch:
it looks exactly like an Xbox One S without the disc slot. The console is called Xbox One S All Digital and comes with a 1TB hard drive — most standard Xbox One S consoles currently also feature a 1TB hard drive.
Microsoft states clearly that this console is only for digital games. If you already have physical Xbox One games, you won’t be able to insert them in the console.
Customers get three games for free with the console through download codes — Minecraft, Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 3. You can then buy more games in the online store or subscribe to the Xbox Game Pass to access a library of games.
This model should cost €229 in Germany, but you might be able to buy it for less. For instance, an Xbox One S officially costs €299 on Microsoft’s website, but you can easily buy it for €200 on Amazon and through other retailers.
Microsoft usually uses the same price points in USD, so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Xbox One S All Digital officially costs $229 in the U.S.
The console makes a lot of sense, especially if it can help lower the price point. The future of media is digital as is evident by our mobile devices that only have access to digital goods via various app stores. On top of that, more and more people are watching content, be it from Netflix, Hulu, or eventually Disney+, by streaming it or downloading from places like iTunes. To a younger generation, the idea of purchasing physical media, especially when it comes to music and movies seems absurd and though I’m not that young, I’ve yet to purchase a single physical game for my PS4 and have used the Blu-ray drive maybe a handful of times.
So if the future of gaming is indeed more aligned with digital downloads and services such as PlayStation Now, then it makes sense to have consoles that are built around that idea. Such a console can not only help lower the cost of entry, but also begin to shift consumers more towards the inevitable future. With that in mind, an Xbox One S All Digital makes a lot of sense, especially since Microsoft isn’t suddenly shifting the entire platform over to discless and consumers still have a choice of what they want from their console, but it does beg the question, where is Sony with a discless PS4?
If anything, PlayStation beat Microsoft and Google by years with PlayStation Now, their game streaming platform. On top of that, any game, DLC, and season pass can be purchased on day one with additional benefits like having a game and its likely day-one update being fully downloaded prior to a game’s midnight release. I hardly doubt that, with PS5, Sony will go fully digital, only because PS4 has been so successful for them and they likely don’t want to rock that boat too much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there was an option for a model with no drive. As for the success of the PS4, one reason was due to the console’s simplicity which saw it launch with only one model at $399 and bundles aside, Sony has been keen on keeping things as simple as possible, even with the PS4 Pro.
Could that be a reason why a discless PS4 has yet to materialize? Perhaps. Then again, a console’s launch period is very different than a few years in, where, between bundles and older models, countless variations exist anyway. Maybe Sony is still trying to protect its Blu-ray business, seeing how they own a large film studio that still sells physical media. Then again, maybe by removing the drive, there isn’t enough of a cost differentiator and so leaving a disc drive makes the most business sense.
Either way, the future of all media is discless so it’s more a matter of when, not if consoles will fully embrace an all digital model. The only question that remains is if Sony will begin to embrace that inevitability with the PS4 or PS5.
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