A new report has corroborated past claims that the supply chain for disc drives is collapsing amid a digital-only future.
The news comes from Digital Foundry, which corroborated a previous Windows Central report that the supply chain for digital drives is collapsing.
Digital Foundry says that the current issue is proving “problematic” for Microsoft, which needs to rely on buying optical drives. The outlet theorizes that it means the next-generation Xbox, codenamed Project Helix, will almost certainly not have a disc drive.
But it seems Microsoft has penciled in that the next-generation console won’t have a disc drive anyway, as Windows Central also previously reported that it was aiming to drop the drive. Seemingly, the lack of optical drive production has reinforced that decision.
“As for Project Helix, our sources also suggest that Microsoft’s next-generation console will drop the disc drive, too,” the outlet said in July.
PlayStation announced that it will be going to an all-digital future at the start of 2028, meaning that the PlayStation 6 won’t have discs or a disc drive, at the very least, by default (it’s currently unclear on if the console will have a add-on drive or not like the later PlayStation 5 models).
PlayStation said, “As consumer preferences and the broader entertainment industry continue to shift away from physical discs to digital, physical game disc production for all new games releasing on PlayStation consoles will be discontinued starting January 2028. Following this date, new games will be available on PlayStation Store and at retailers in digital formats only. This transition has no impact on games that already released, or will be releasing, prior to January 2028 in disc format.”
So it seems that an all-digital future for consoles is inevitable, despite public outcry. What do you think about the next-generation consoles going digital only? Let us know in our official Discord server.
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Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming's Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he's not running one of the industry's leading independent video game websites, he's probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,…
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