News Microsoft's driveless Xbox One could launch in April

"Blu-ray discs are just as digital as downloads are"

Thank you so much for fighting the good fight here.

 

Don't get me started on "organic" vegetables...

 

LOL! On the average download speeds in the UK or many other countries... good luck!

 

To be fair since consoles these days allow games to launch in a blatantly unfinished state (like for example Battlefield V or Street Fighter V) you frequently end up downloading several multi GB patches either way.

The bigger concern is that if this drive less Xbone isn't an abysmal failure in sales then we can probably wave an optical drive in the PS5 and XboneTwo goodbye and with it the used game market.

 

If I didn't already own an Xbox One X, I'd consider getting something like this as I don't ever buy physical media any more.

The majority of the UK isn't too bad, even I'm in a pretty rural location and get a decent speed. I agree that some other parts of the world where Internet isn't a priority probably wouldn't benefit from it though.

 

I don't think speed is the main issue in the UK anymore (not that it's great compared to a lot of the world) - it's more the hassle and cost involved with getting that speed that is shocking.

And then there's the whole reliability thing - with the amount the streets are being dug up in Cambridge, it seems like a weekly occurrence that someone we know (or us) is left without phone and net for chunks of time...

 

I guess that's one of the advantages of living out in a rural location, both the council & various suppliers don't give two hoots about doing any additional work in the area so the only disruptions we get are power cuts when the weather is bad.

 

I'm hoping that retailers sabotage it like they did the PSP Go.

 

Seeing that my parents house can’t even get above 20 Mbps... it doesn’t bode well. I can’t see many people wanting to wait six hours to play a game when they can install from a disk and be done in 20 mins.

 

A lot of PC gamers are fine with that, and if it takes 24 hours at least to deliver the disk (or a trip to town) it's still probably quicker than that.

 

You could be right there... but it's still a good point for many that might want the option to pop into town for the disk. This isn't the future for most. The infrastructure in the UK is laughably bad for how many people there are, and how much area there is to cover.

 

I like physical games, I buy them 2nd hand or on sale, once done give them to a mate who does the same to me.

 

And the games where finished rather than early access, had no dlc, microtransactions, season passes, battle passes, loot boxes and developers didn't throw their toys out of the pram if you played a game for only 20 hours followed by playing a different game rather than the modern "live services" that demand you treat them like a full time job for years (but somehow still crap out frequent sequels).

 

If only playing a game from disc on modern consoles was that straight-forward, nowadays they all seem to be going more and more to be a case of insert disc, then download a huge amount of additional data to install the game on your console and download a boat load of patches.

I'm finding PC games are becoming even worse with physical media where sometimes the disc just contains a Steam installer and activation.

Definitely!
I'd be more interested in returning to having physical copies if they made it worthwhile by having a nice detailed booklet and something a bit more interesting than a run of the mill plastic jewel case that looks like every other product.

 

I love the smell of manuals in the morning.