Xbox goes disc-free with Call of Duty the star attraction

The black original console only has one advantage, and it’s a big one: you can insert discs into it. If you want to play Blu-ray movies on your console, or you have a bunch of Xbox discs that you wish to keep using, the Digital Edition is a non-starter.

Beyond that, everything is in the Digital Edition’s favour. It’s a far more visually attractive console, with the stark white body making its hard angles, floating base and convex circled vent cover much more striking, and the lack of a disc slot reinforcing its seam-free construction. Despite the big fan at the top, it never runs louder than a whisper. It also feels a kilogram or so lighter (I say this as someone who carries a Series X between rooms often).

I haven’t dismantled the digital Series X to look inside, but reviewers who have noted some key internal changes; namely an entirely new board and a shrunk-down processor. Microsoft hasn’t made a big deal of this because games run exactly the same, but in theory it should make the system more energy efficient. The Series X is already pretty good in this area when the console is not in use — keeping your games up to date while using the bare minimum power — but if you’ll be playing a lot, the new model could potentially save money on electricity.

And speaking of money, the console is $100 cheaper than the disc drive version, which isn’t a huge discount, but it’s not nothing. In times past I might have said it was smarter to go for the more expensive model because you’ll save more by buying discounted physical games, but that’s not necessarily the case any more.

If you buy many new games the day they’re released, and like the option of re-selling them when you’re done, then the disc drive will still save you money. If not, there’s something to be said for the convenience of buying digital; never needing to go to the store or wait for a package in the mail, being able to remotely install your games through a smartphone app, and snapping up games when they’re on sale or included in the sub.

Microsoft may introduce a more powerful machine in the next few years, but the Series X isn’t crying out for more performance. On a high-end TV, you’re getting up to 4K visuals at a 120Hz refresh rate, Dolby Vision HDR in games and a wildly fast storage drive. For anybody upgrading from a Series S, or entering this generation of Xbox for the first time, either of the Series X consoles will be incredible. It’s just a matter of whether you want the disc drive or not.

Game Pass and the Call of Duty effect

With all this talk of Game Pass, non-subscribers might be wondering if now’s the time to jump in, especially since Call of Duty has arrived.

When the service was first hitting its stride around five years ago, it was easy to recommend. You paid $11 per month, and you got access to every single Microsoft-published game on the day it was released, plus a growing library of other games. But Xbox’s expansions and acquisitions (costing Microsoft far in excess of $100 billion) have clearly put pressure on it to make more money. And so, Game Pass has become more complicated.

Today there are three different Game Pass plans for Xbox consoles. The basic ‘Core’ offer is still $11 per month, but it only gets you access to a small and infrequently updated library of around 30 games. ‘Standard’ is $16 per month and gets you almost the entire library, which is now hundreds of games large. But the only way to get brand new Microsoft-published games on the day they release is to subscribe to ‘Ultimate’ at $23 per month, meaning the original selling point of the service is now exclusive to a tier more than twice the original price.

Ultimate does have other perks; you get access to the full library of PC games and cloud streaming, so you can play on any device whether it’s your Windows laptop or Samsung smart TV, and it’s the only tier that includes a back catalogue of sports and Star Wars games from EA.

Is $23 per month a fair price for all of that? I think so, but only if you’re using it. If you mainly want Game Pass to play Call of Duty or Indiana Jones on day one, maybe not. If you’re exclusively a Call of Duty player you could buy the new game for the equivalent of around four months of Game Pass Ultimate. Of course, Microsoft doesn’t care which path you go down because it gets the money either way, and you have to subscribe to some tier of Game Pass or other in order for your console to access online multiplayer.

Potentially the bigger impact of Call of Duty on Game Pass is that subscribers who aren’t big into shooters (let’s say, grazers who use the service to play many different genres of game) now have access to this massive franchise without having to drop $100. The strength of the subscription has always been that players who could previously only afford one or two games per month can now play dozens, and bringing Call of Duty to those players is a big deal.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter said Game Pass could grow by three or four million subscribers as a result of the game’s inclusion, but that around a quarter of its existing 30 million subscribers would likely have paid the $100 on top to get the game. That means Microsoft is trading full-game sales for a larger subscription audience, and more Call of Duty players to potentially monetise through in-game purchases.

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