Xbox is reportedly working on a way to let players turn their disc copies of Xbox Series X and Xbox One games into digital versions.
As reported by The Verge, the feature which is reportedly codenamed Disc2Digital, is being tested by internal Xbox testers at the moment.
When players insert a compatible Xbox disc and install and play their game as normal, they will then be granted a digital entitlement for the game as if it had been purchased on the Xbox store instead.
This means players can then remove the disc and can continue to play the game as if it had been a digital purchase, with all the existing benefits that entails.
As such, if the digital version of the game is available for streaming on Xbox Cloud Gaming, players with a Game Pass subscription will be able to stream it. If it’s a Play Anywhere title, they will also get access to the PC version.
The report says the feature is intended to work with Xbox Series X and Xbox One discs, but not Xbox 360 or original Xbox games.
In order to prevent widespread sharing of each game, the digital entitlement will also be tied to each disc. This means if players give their disc to a friend, trade it in, or try to play it with a different Xbox profile, the digital entitlement will swap over from account to account.
Discs will reportedly continue to work after they’ve been installed, and players will only lose their entitlement to keep playing it if the disc is given to a friend or sold to someone else.
The news comes on the same day that Sony has announced it will no longer be releasing its games on disc from January 2028, all but confirming the PlayStation 6 will not have a disc drive.
Whether the same will be the case for Project Helix remains to be seen, but if it turns out Helix doesn’t have a disc drive either, if Disc2Digital eventually rolls out to all users then Xbox will at least be providing some sort of backwards compatibility solution to players with a collection of discs.
