by
William D’Angelo
, posted 5 hours ago / 1,118 Views
Following Sony announcing it is ending physical game discs for PlayStation consoles starting in January 2028, The Verge is reporting Microsoft is testing the ability for Xbox gamers to digitize their physical games library.
Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans say Xbox employees have been testing a disc-to-digital feature, which works with Xbox One and Xbox Series X discs. Xbox 360 and original Xbox discs are not supported. At least during the testing phase. An update for the Xbox PC app in May of this year did reference “enable Disc2Digital.”
In order to get a digital copy of a game all a user needs to do is insert a compatible disc into a drive, install the game, and play it. A Microsoft account on an Xbox console is required in order to use digital entitlement for physical games. The digital entitlement is tied to the specific disc and will move from account to account if you swap the physical game with a friend or log in to a different Xbox profile and try to play a disc-based game.
This new feature works similarly to buying a digital game from the Microsoft Store. If the game is available on Xbox Cloud Gaming and you have a Game Pass subscription, you will be able to stream the game. If it is an Xbox Play Anywhere title, you will be able to access it on PCs and handhelds.
Game discs that come bundled with a console and multi-disc titles will also work with the Xbox disc-to-digital feature. However, some Xbox One discs might not work.
“It all depends on how and when the disc was manufactured and it may not have the features we need for this program,” Microsoft reportedly told internal testers.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
