UPDATE: September 9 saw Ubisoft games become available in XBOX’s Disc to Digital program, with more publishers also set to join soon.
Neither Ubisoft or Square Enix are participating in XBOX’s Disc to Digital program, users has discovered, amid the ongoing physical vs digital battle in the industry.
After Sony announced discs will no longer be used for PlayStation games beyond 2028, Microsoft took a different approach and launched the disc to digital program, allowing users to benefit from XBOX’s digital features, all while retaining the benefits of a physical disc.
The program was launched to XBOX Insiders on August 31, with a full rollout expected in future, but those testing have noticed that some big publishers are not involved.
Ubisoft & Square Enix Digital Licenses Unavailable
Posts on X and Reddit have documented Ubisoft skipping the feature and, when inserting a disc for a Ubisoft title into an XBOX, players are met with a message stating ‘Digital license unavailable,’ adding that ‘this game is not participating in digital licensing.
Square Enix seems to have made the same decision, with users reporting the same pop-up when attempting to access the program on one of its titles, and unconfirmed rumors have suggested other big-name developers will also opt out.
Neither Ubisoft or Square Enix have commented on the absence of disc to digital support on XBOX and, given that more titles will be supported by the program in the future, it doesn’t necessarily mean the door is shut permanently.
However, it does raise discussions about the downsides of the program, especially if it’s unclear which games are supported and which aren’t when purchasing.
Are you a fan of Microsoft’s disc to digital program on XBOX? Let us know in the official Insider Gaming Discord Server.
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Interesting choice 🤔 I’m trying to understand what they lose from this as it seems it would just be goodwill gained from the fans.
lol, what they lose from this is you have to rebuy the game to get the digital version later. Because when the new consoles come out without a disk drive then I’m sure they will stop the support for the old disk games from working at some point because every time you put a disk in it verifies on the internet which is why when the server went down nothing worked offline. Not even the digital games I bought would work offline without a Xbox game pass. All the old digital xbox 360 games I own worked perfectly so I wonder what they changed to stop the Xbox one and Xbox series s games from working?
This gives digital games a way to keep consumers game Library. In a state of ownership sort of.🤔