PS5's Physical Disc Debacle Will Attract More Anger if This Xbox Rumour Is True 1
Image: Gemma Smith / Push Square

The initial wave of anger over Sony’s decision to cease manufacturing physical discs in 2028 has passed, and while the platform holder is still getting peppered with negative comments across all of its socials, the sting is slowly starting to burn itself out.

An incoming announcement from Xbox could ironically bring all of this back to the fore, however.

It’s widely rumoured that Microsoft will introduce a new Xbox Series X|S feature next week which will allow players to digitise their physical discs.

The feature – which will only support Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One discs, not Xbox 360 or original Xbox games – is codenamed Project Positron, and will effectively tie a digital license to a physical disc.

It means, once associated with your console, you’ll be able to play a digital version of any physical games you own.

If you sell or loan your game to a friend, and the disc is then inserted into a different system, access to the digital version in your library will be revoked and reassigned to the person who has the disc. This is to prevent you from digitising your game and then giving the physical version away, essentially netting you two copies.

I’m convinced there will be various other catches and caveats to this set-up – potentially including an online check-in – but I think it’ll be seen as a real positive in the wake of Sony’s recent news.

Xbox had been due to deploy new features for its Insider Program last week, but lead developer Brad Rossetti said it had “paused” the rollout in order to prep for a feature that’s “worth the wait”.

The prediction from the likes of Jez Corden of Windows Central is that it’ll include the aforementioned disc-to-digital functionality.

Obviously, none of this is going to help PS5 owners with huge physical libraries of PlayStation games, but as Sony’s communication has been so poor on how it plans to support its players’ libraries moving forwards, I predict a big backlash here.

I think it’s just another reminder of how poorly the platform holder has communicated here.

If it had announced its plans to cease manufacturing discs alongside meaningful improvements to the PS Store and digital ownership, I don’t think these past two weeks would have gone quite so badly.