The Xbox One S All Digital

[Guest]

So, for those who don't know, Microsoft is releasing an all digital Xbox One without a disk drive. Austin Evans did a teardown:

 

So, to sort of echo Austin's thoughts a bit here, but I have to say... A lot of this console design makes... No sense:

 

• The name is... Bad. I mean it's just bad. Xbox One S All Digital is not only a mouthful, but it abbreviates to Xbox One SAD which is worse. Being ALSO called an Xbox One S might create confusion with parents.
• The hard drive being non-removable makes NO SENSE for an all-digital edition console, especially with all that space saved from not having an optical drive. 1TB is not that much these days, so this makes no sense to do.
• Making it too much in appearance to the regular S is going to cause confusion in the resale market too. I can already see people duping uninformed buyers with these.
• The price point... It's only $50 cheaper than the regular S, but what's worse... You can find regular Xbox One S's on Amazon for less than the All Digital, so... The only real benefit to the system is sort of negated. Given how many Xboxes are sitting in warehouses, I doubt this will ever not be the case either.
• As a collector, this system has no value. Literally, even when the Xbox One is "retro" you won't be able to use this to play ANYTHING as it will be obsolete the moment support for the Xbox One ends. Especially with the S will be more abundant.

It's clear that this system is Microsoft trying to ween people onto accepting no physical media so they can achieve their digital-only future. I sincerely hope it doesn't take off, because it would be the start of a bad trend for consumers.

This is just one person's thoughts though. What are yours?

[Megas 28,140]

I feel like these kinds of consoles would only work if these were digital only from the start. This sort of thing killed the PSPgo early on iirc

[Misty Shadow 8,201]

I hate the push for digital downloads only. Digital downloads may offer convenience, but physical media allows you to actually own something that you can hold in your hands and prove to be your property. I'm really not too hot about this. 

[Sparklefan1234 181,033]

1 hour ago, Key Sharkz said:

Xbox One S All Digital is not only a mouthful, but it abbreviates to Xbox One SAD which is worse.

 

They obviously didn't think that name through well enough. 

[Megas 28,140]

Xbox One S All Digital = Xbox One SAD

Just when I thought they couldn't get worse than the Xbox One name

Credit to the X, it actually sounded clever when you think about it

XBox One X = XBOX

[Brony Number 42 10,093]

The old Xboxes were all digital already. The digital data was stored on optical discs.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Brony_2A said:

The old Xboxes were all digital already. The digital data was stored on optical discs.

I can't tell if this is intended as being a smarmy comment or a legitimate point, lol.

 

Either way, the point is that you can not buy used games, use blurays/DVDs/etc. Naturally, we all know that content is in a digital format on optical disks.

[Brony Number 42 10,093]

3 hours ago, Key Sharkz said:

I can't tell if this is intended as being a smarmy comment or a legitimate point, lol.

It is a big pet peve of mine when people say digital when they mean download. Maybe "media independent" is a better term. Digital means information encoded as discrete bits. I can hand write 1s and 0s on paper and that is digital.

My comment is both swarmy and legitimate.  Language matters. 

[Brony Number 42 10,093]

Does this require internet to play even after the game is downloaded? If it does not, then it won't be totally obsolete as a retro. But it will only have the games installed on it. 

The existing Xbox Ones can accept external hard drives. If this one can too, then you can have unlimited capacity, even if you have to swap external drives.

I have thousands of digital games on cartridge or optical disc. Obvioulsy I don't play many of them. As a collector, there is no point in downloading a game I will never play. This will actually cause a drop in sales from me.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Brony_2A said:

Does this require internet to play even after the game is downloaded? If it does not, then it won't be totally obsolete as a retro. But it will only have the games installed on it. 

The existing Xbox Ones can accept external hard drives. If this one can too, then you can have unlimited capacity, even if you have to swap external drives.

I have thousands of digital games on cartridge or optical disc. Obvioulsy I don't play many of them. As a collector, there is no point in downloading a game I will never play. This will actually cause a drop in sales from me.

Problem is that if you’re buying it off of someone the games are authenticated via Xbox Live. So even if you buy it then you can’t use the games pre-installed. Furthermore when Xbox Live is discontinued on the Xbox One then you are basically not going to be able to use your own games either since there will be no way to authenticate anymore.

[Brony Number 42 10,093]

10 minutes ago, Key Sharkz said:

Problem is that if you’re buying it off of someone the games are authenticated via Xbox Live. So even if you buy it then you can’t use the games pre-installed. Furthermore when Xbox Live is discontinued on the Xbox One then you are basically not going to be able to use your own games either since there will be no way to authenticate anymore.

I will never buy such a thing. If the next generation of consoles are download only then that will be the end for me.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 42,202]

On 4/16/2019 at 6:13 PM, Key Sharkz said:

onto accepting no physical media so they can achieve their digital-only future

Isn't this the exact thing that PC gaming does at almost all times?

[Celli 4,349]

5 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Isn't this the exact thing that PC gaming does at almost all times?

The difference is that PC gaming has ways of preserving old games, consoles do not.  Also, PC has different storefronts for the ability to have competition.

Edited April 20, 2019 by Celli

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Isn't this the exact thing that PC gaming does at almost all times?

Also don’t see how this makes it a good thing either.

 

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 42,202]

2 hours ago, Key Sharkz said:

Also don’t see how this makes it a good thing either.

 

It honestly doesnt matter to me, I couldnt care less. I just find it ironic since digital only has been a PC staple for years now and nobody has cared.

[Guest]

On 4/21/2019 at 3:14 AM, Kyoshi said:

It honestly doesnt matter to me, I couldnt care less. I just find it ironic since digital only has been a PC staple for years now and nobody has cared.

I don't really see the relevance to this topic.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 42,202]

57 minutes ago, Key Sharkz said:

I don't really see the relevance to this topic.

Seems relevant to me. Most PC gamers go digital only or vast majority digital. If that didn't make console companies want to go all digital in the past decade I don't think this entirely optional console will, especially considering just how many regular Xbox One's are out there.

[Guest]

13 minutes ago, Kyoshi said:

Seems relevant to me. Most PC gamers go digital only or vast majority digital. If that didn't make console companies want to go all digital in the past decade I don't think this entirely optional console will, especially considering just how many regular Xbox One's are out there.

This is mostly about the Xbox One S All Digital.

It's only minorly relevant, so please try and keep it pertinent to the topic, I don't want this derailed into a PC discussion or a PC vs. consoles discussion.

 

To put it simply though: I actually spoke against PC going all digital as well because you end up with shit like what's going on with the Epic Game Store, but that's a discussion for another topic, another day.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 42,202]

6 minutes ago, Key Sharkz said:

This is mostly about the Xbox One S All Digital.

It's only minorly relevant, so please try and keep it pertinent to the topic, I don't want this derailed into a PC discussion or a PC vs. consoles discussion.

 

To put it simply though: I actually spoke against PC going all digital as well because you end up with shit like what's going on with the Epic Game Store, but that's a discussion for another topic, another day.

It is totally on topic because it is comparing one all digital platform to another mostly digital platform and the results of one indicating the most likely result of the other.

Either way though I said my piece so I'm good.