We know that the Xbox is a console that has made a strong commitment to the digital format, although it has never completely left the physical market. It is true that these efforts have diminished over the generations and we are currently seeing how many so-called “minority” or independent games have ended up without physical delivery on Xbox consoles.
This, for those who didn’t know, is due to the fact that Microsoft, in order to release physical games on Xbox, required a high minimum number of copies, which was difficult for publishers or small studios to achieve. Microsoft seems to want to change that and as Chris Charla has explained for the past few hours, the requirement of a minimum of physical copies for Xbox games will reduce their quantitiessomething that should lead to seeing more physical games on Xbox.
More Physical Xbox Games Coming Soon
Over the years, various programs have started on Xbox in direct response to feedback from independent developers, from our early access program, Xbox Game Preview, to cross-platform play with friends on PC and consoles from other manufacturers, as well than cross-progression. , so that players’ progress in a game elsewhere can be carried over to Xbox.
The latter took a minute to happen, and we thank all the developers who worked closely with us to make this happen in a robust and safe way for our gaming community. Ironically, we’ve even enabled retail disc publishing for developers on [email protected]Xbox’s digital self-publishing program.
This retail program is still in a pilot phase with a limited number of partners, but developers can create physical versions of their games with only a low “minimum order quantity” of physical Xbox units. We hope to release this for wider participation in the near future (devs, please see our April newsletter for more information).
At the moment there is no exact date to see the results, but they have already broken the melon, so it’s only a matter of time before it starts working and we see more games independent on the shelves.
The most important thing for me is this compilation pic.twitter.com/FONWjoyDQJ
— Neotonysoprano🙅💚💿 (@neotonysoprano) March 21, 2023
