Microsoft Announces Xbox Disc-to-Digital Conversion, Rolling Out to Insiders August 31

Microsoft has officially announced that Xbox will introduce a disc-to-digital conversion feature, allowing players to turn their existing physical game collections into digital versions. The capability, previously reported by the media, is part of Microsoft's efforts in game preservation and preparation for the next generation of Xbox consoles.

Jason Ronald, vice president of the next-generation products at Xbox, said in the official announcement that most disc-based games for Xbox One and Xbox Series X will support the new feature. Players simply insert a supported disc into an Xbox One or Xbox Series X console and launch the game to receive the corresponding digital entitlement. This digital right is tied to the specific disc: if a player trades the physical game with a friend, or logs into a different Xbox account and attempts to run the disc-based game, the digital entitlement will transfer to that account as well.

Microsoft will begin rolling out the feature to Xbox Insider testers on August 31, with a gradual rollout to all Xbox One and Xbox Series X consoles in the following months. Once a user obtains the digital version of a disc-based game, and provided the game is supported, they can also access it on PC through Xbox Play Anywhere or stream it to multiple devices via Xbox Cloud Gaming.

An internal memo leaked earlier this month indicated that game publishers will have control over the disc-to-digital feature, meaning not all games will be supported at launch. Ronald commented: "We're starting with thousands of games and will continue to expand the supported list over time. While not every game will be available at launch, this is an important step in giving players more confidence that the games they buy will be theirs for the long term."

The introduction of Xbox's disc-to-digital feature comes just weeks after Sony announced it would fully cease production of physical PlayStation game discs.