Yes, it’s another edition of Patch Notes about Xbox. It seems that Microsoft’s gaming division couldn’t get out of the headlines these days if it tried — not that it seems to be trying very hard. Last week was dominated by the news of more layoffs and the shocking transfer of Halo to Activision. The week before, Xbox floated like a mildly threatening specter behind the scenes of a good but slightly desperate BlizzCon.
This week, perhaps in an attempt to wrest control of the narrative (from itself), Xbox fielded CEO Asha Sharma for a New York Times profile. But the unfortunate takeaway from that interview was that Sharma was forced to deny that the platform-holder was for sale. Good to know, but unfortunate that she has to say it.
But I’m not being strictly fair. This wasn’t really the big Xbox story of the week. There were quite a few, and in a shocking turn of events, most of them were good news. The review embargo lifted on Gears of War: E-Day — not just the return of a fan-favorite and very Xbox-y series, but the flagship for Sharma’s partial return to making console-exclusive games. And it’s good! With an 87 on Metacritic, it’s one of the better-reviewed AAA games this year. It’s also as full of gory action and manly emotion as you could want a Gears game to be. (And hey, Minecraft Dungeons 2 is pretty good too.)
This isn’t all, though. When she was appointed, Sharma made a point of promising much-requested platform updates to keep fans happy. We got a couple this week, both motivated (in different ways) by comparisons with Xbox’s rivals over at PlayStation. Testing began for Mythic Achievements, Xbox’s extremely belated answer to Platinum Trophies. I can see why fans care, but they don’t add anything new to the landscape. The other new addition, though, is something else.
This week saw the official launch, after a testing period, of Xbox’s disc-to-digital feature, which allows players to claim digital licences for games they own on disc, thus preserving those games for a future in which they may no longer own an Xbox with a disc drive. If you’re already in that position (like me, with my otherwise trusty Series S), you can use your old Xbox One to do it, or log in on a friend’s console.
This is huge, and not just because it means I can play the first Forza Horizon whenever I want on my current console. It’s important because it’s a genuinely new and useful feature that helps bridge gaming’s awkward format war. It adds convenience and value to physical games, while also helping collectors prepare for an all-digital future. It’s inclusive of all the ways people want to own and play their games.
It’s also important because it’s a sign that Xbox’s brilliant engineering team will still be able to deliver, under Sharma, the kind of game-changing initiatives they did under Phil Spencer: initiatives like the backward compatibility drive that saved the entire Xbox 360 generation of games from format oblivion. (Sony couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do the same for PS3.)
I’m not sure if disc-to-digital was spun up as a PR response to Sony’s decision to end physical game production. If so, it was quick work; if not, it showed great foresight. This is the kind of thing platform-holders should be doing, and not just as fan-service. Anything that removes barriers to playing games is good for the players, good for the games, good for the medium, and yes, good for the industry.