{"id":929950,"date":"2026-07-12T13:55:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-12T13:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/929950\/"},"modified":"2026-07-12T13:55:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-12T13:55:17","slug":"ps5s-physical-disc-debacle-will-attract-more-anger-if-this-xbox-rumour-is-true","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/929950\/","title":{"rendered":"PS5’s Physical Disc Debacle Will Attract More Anger if This Xbox Rumour Is True"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"PS5's<\/a> Image: Gemma Smith \/ Push Square<\/p>\n

The initial wave of anger<\/a> over Sony\u2019s decision to cease manufacturing physical discs in 2028<\/a> has passed, and while the platform holder is still getting peppered with negative comments<\/a> across all of its socials, the sting is slowly starting to burn itself out.<\/p>\n

An incoming announcement from Xbox<\/a> could ironically bring all of this back to the fore, however.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s widely rumoured that Microsoft will introduce a new Xbox Series X|S feature next week which will allow players to digitise their physical discs<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The feature \u2013 which will only support Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One discs, not Xbox 360 or original Xbox games \u2013 is codenamed Project Positron, and will effectively tie a digital license to a physical disc.<\/p>\n

It means, once associated with your console, you\u2019ll be able to play a digital version of any physical games you own.<\/p>\n

If you sell or loan your game to a friend, and the disc is then inserted into a different system, access to the digital version in your library will be revoked and reassigned to the person who has the disc. This is to prevent you from digitising your game and then giving the physical version away, essentially netting you two copies.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m convinced there will be various other catches and caveats to this set-up \u2013 potentially including an online check-in \u2013 but I think it\u2019ll be seen as a real positive in the wake of Sony\u2019s recent news.<\/p>\n

Xbox had been due to deploy new features for its Insider Program last week, but lead developer Brad Rossetti said<\/a> it had \u201cpaused\u201d the rollout in order to prep for a feature that\u2019s \u201cworth the wait\u201d.<\/p>\n

The prediction from the likes of Jez Corden of Windows Central<\/a> is that it\u2019ll include the aforementioned disc-to-digital functionality.<\/p>\n

Obviously, none of this is going to help PS5 owners with huge physical libraries of PlayStation games, but as Sony\u2019s communication has been so poor<\/a> on how it plans to support its players\u2019 libraries moving forwards, I predict a big backlash here.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s just another reminder of how poorly the platform holder has communicated here.<\/p>\n

If it had announced its plans to cease manufacturing discs alongside meaningful improvements to the PS Store<\/strong><\/a> and digital ownership, I don\u2019t think these past two weeks would have gone quite so badly.<\/p>\n

\"Sammy<\/p>\n

As the Editor of Push Square, Sammy has over 15 years of experience analysing the world of PlayStation, from PS3 through PS5 and everything in between. He\u2019s an expert on PS Studios and industry matters, as well as sports games and simulators. He also enjoys RPGs when he has the time to dedicate to them, and is a bit of a gacha whale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Image: Gemma Smith \/ Push Square The initial wave of anger over Sony\u2019s decision to cease manufacturing physical…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":929951,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7],"tags":[3195,15610,70351,158,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-929950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-technology","tag-industry","tag-ps5","tag-ps6","tag-technology","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116907352563038016","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=929950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/929950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/929951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=929950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=929950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=929950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}