Interesting, then, why have we seen in US stores that retail sales of Xbox games have been suspended?

Last September, some documents were leaked that outlined Microsoft’s video game strategy for the next few years. At the time, plans were in the pipeline for a Blu-ray drive-less (and therefore digital-only) Xbox Series X, codenamed Brooklin. Those plans may have changed since then, but at the time we were told it would hit stores this November for $500.

And Xbox CEO Phil Spencer, in an interview with Game File, said that Microsoft is following the direction that consumers are taking. (They could take that approach with the Windows operating system, if it weren’t a PR ploy). “We support physical media, but we don’t have to push it out of proportion to customer demand. We ship games physically and digitally, and we’re really just following what the customers are doing. And I think our job in running Xbox is to deliver the things that the majority of customers want. And right now, the majority of our customers are buying games digitally.

Game consoles themselves have become sort of the last consumer electronic device that has a drive. And that is a real issue, just in terms of the number of manufacturers that are actually building drives and the costs associated with that. But I will say that our strategy is not dependent on people going all digital. And getting rid of physical, that’s not a strategic thing for us,” Spencer said.

Some games have recently gone digital-only, such as Remedy Entertainment’s Alan Wake 2, and Xbox’s Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2, due in May. Daniel Ahmad, research director at Niko Partners, claims that digital sales on Xbox are over 80% for some AAA games, and this could also be the case for the next generation of consoles…

Source: VGC, Game File, Twitter