Yep I think it’s clear the Series S has done wonders for Xbox as the cheap GamePass machine like you mentioned. It always felt the disc drive on the PS5 was an after thought especially with the way it’s been implemented in that ugly bulge on the side.
I do wonder if all disc drives will go modular in future to save costs.
I must admit I have only used one physical game in my Series X.
It’s literally been 99% digital but with GamePass and regular sales/discounts it’s been cheaper to buy digital over physical.
I also wonder how much the disc drive adds to the Series X in cost, they could have potentially done something similar there.
I reckon that you’ve just nailed what MS plan to do with the Series X upgrade mid-gen. If they make a Series S+, that is a Sieries S with the full Series X internals… that’s your Series S+ or Series X+ or what ever you want to call it.
I asked my two pals a few days ago - that both have Series Xs - and they said that they have not once put a disc into their Series X, but welcomed the ability to do so as they both have BC One and 360 games, but said that for them the reason that they got the Series X was for 120Hz and 4k support.
I suspect it’s a similar story for most.
I definitely wanted the best visuals I could get, plus wanted it future proof for when I eventually upgrade to a Dolby Vision / 120hz TV.
It’s fantastic to have the ability, like you mentioned with backwards compatibility and if I can occasionally find a physical game (that’s not on GamePass) cheaper. The main issue I have is even in this alleged drought on the Xbox side I still don’t have enough time to play all the games - 2023 will be a killer!
I don’t know how often disc drives fail but it’s surely another element they must have already considered making optional.
Yep I wouldn’t be surprised, generally they want to make them either smaller & cheaper or more powerful.
At most around $20 in costs savings to remove the optical disc drive. Some of the savings is from the actual mechanical unit, some from the software license to play bluray movies, some from the packaging and space savings. They are willing to drop the price lower because they can make it up on the software front knowing they won’t be buying second hand discs.
This is probably how every console will be going forward. Digital only but with an accessory to handle physical media. I’m here for it, though the accessory should be a generic off the shelf Blu ray drive.
That presents its own set of problems to prevent piracy. They need to ensure the physical content is legit before the third party content creators will approve. Off the shelf BluRay players likely would not have the needed DRM for PS/Xbox consoles.
As this is the case I can see why Xbox just included it in the X (they can eat the costs). It would be pretty sweet if they created something similar for the Series S though.
Eventually I wouldn’t be surprised if all disc drives become an optional add on (for all consoles).
Completely, but its not enough to move the needle on MSRPs to where players would be enticed to pick it up
if they weren’t inclined to anyways. At the high end a $480-$485 all-digital versus a $500 Optical with everything else being identical wont bring in more gamers.
As the price tiers drive lower, that $20 makes more of a difference, so a $280 versus a $300 looks more enticing. There is a certain consumer mentality that happens when hitting key price inflections. So the MFGs may be willing to eat more costs to hit those price points, maybe around $275, $250, $225.
Im sure there’s tons of market behavioral studies out there that provider better details and insight than my ramblings ever could. I just don’t have any links to them.
I agree. The key would be in pricing it high enough to make fiancial business sense producing it, yet low enough where people won’t complain. Is that the $60-$80 range, or roughly the cost of a single controller or game? There’s quite a bit of additional costs outside of purely the Bill of Materials, like manufacturing, testing, storage, shipping, logistics and additional overhead.
Yep I suppose based on the previous comment there’s also licensing e.g. will blu-ray licensing be bundled in with the device or will people have to pay for it separately.
Also will the drive parts be available for the consoles lifespan for both compatibility and repairs.
I suspect they will have to keep it at a low price point to make it viable to mass produce as I suspect as years go by people won’t care about physical (just like film & music). At this point it’s practically just a license on a disc that can’t be played (without updates) anyway.
That license was part of the $20 cost estimate provided earlier.
Not sure who has noticed this, but the BluRay Playback license cost is deferred on current consoles. Microsoft (and pretty sure Sony too) doesn’t activate the license until one actually installs the software. Maybe not until they actually playback the media. That part is a little fuzzy on actual trigger point. So that’s a little bit of savings they scrape together when possible.
I look forward to both offering discless consoles with an option to add optical disc peripheral. Every little bit of savings will help for next-gen.
