Or is MS going all-digital?
- by Ben Kerry
With lots of talk about Project Helix coming out of GDC 2026, we know a little bit more about Microsoft’s next-gen vision – including high-level details on the hardware, how developers will be able to make use of it, and the fact that Xbox is trying to bring everything together in a more seamless PC-meets-console ecosystem. That has us thinking, will the next-gen Xbox support physical games at all?
This is a pretty tough question to answer with the details we have right now, but it’s definitely a discussion worth having. With how much Microsoft is leaning into PC now, physical versions of next-gen-only games are starting to feel less and less likely (they could happen though, Xbox hasn’t confirmed this either way). What about backwards compatible games though? Surely Microsoft has a plan to let us use our physical Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S libraries?
There are a few ways the team could go here, of course. The most obvious of those is to provide a detachable disc drive just like the PS5 slim consoles; likely with a focus on it being a tool to play backwards compatible Xbox games with. This feels like the easiest solution if Microsoft doesn’t build a drive directly into the system, but there could be a scenario where folks just have to re-purchase old games in digital form (or access them via Game Pass of course).
In the past, we’ve also pondered the idea of Xbox launching some sort of program to convert physical Xbox games into digital keys, maybe via existing disc-based Xbox consoles – but this just seems too ambitious of a scheme to pull off, with too many potential loopholes to boot. We’d be interested to see how they’d handle this, but it just doesn’t seem feasible at this time. It’s a lot easier when you’re in a fully-digital ecosystem like PC is nowadays!
So, we’re going run a little poll down below with some potential options that Microsoft could take with this, and we’d love to get some discussion going on the comments too. Will Project Helix support physical games, and if so, how will Xbox achieve that?
Will Project Helix Support Physical Xbox Games? (1,193 votes)
- Yes, with a built-in disc drive like Xbox Series X33%
- Yes, with a detachable disc drive like PS5 Slim23%
- Yes, with a built-in disc drive like Xbox Series X (back compat only)5%
- Yes, with a detachable disc drive like PS5 Slim (back compat only)12%
- No, but Microsoft will let us convert physical games to digital3%
- No, Microsoft will completely abandon physical media next-gen23%
- Other 0.9%
Talk to us about this in the comments section below!
Ben is a News Writer at Pure Xbox, and is a fan of action, racing and straight-up shootin’ in any Xbox game he can get his hands on. When he’s not clutching an Xbox controller like his life depends on it, Ben spends his time listening to music that’s far too old for him, watching football on the telly and probably eating somewhere.
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