Xbox One could have been disc-less; went with Blu-Ray instead

Xbox One can provide a great experience whether you choose to purchase your games in store from a brick and mortar retailer, or if you decide to download all of your content digitally from the Microsoft Xbox Marketplace. I personally download all of my content from the store, and have not used to the disk drive to this day (okay, I did once to test for the original faulty Blu-Ray drive issue). It has just been revealed though, that at one point – Xbox One could have been a disc-less console.

The official Xbox magazine for the UK spoke to Microsoft Studio’s boss, Phil Spencer, about the design process of the company’s latest console. Spencer revealed that the company was considering removing the disk drive from the unit as late as mid-2013.

“There was a real discussion about whether we should have an optical disc drive in Xbox One,” commented Spencer, “we could get away with a purely disc-less console, but when you start looking at bandwidth and game size, it does create issues.”

So there it is, Microsoft struggled with the idea of creating a possible disc-less console, but decided against it due to current bandwidth constraints along with the massive size of some of the currently available game titles.

The fact that we have to remember is that Xbox is a universal brand, while some of us may have an excellent internet connection (I get 50 Mb/s down) – not all of us are so lucky. In areas where internet connections drip slower than molasses from a winter tree (what?), the disc-less option of an Xbox One just isn’t a possibility for all at the current time.

While a second Xbox One without a disc drive could have been a possible option, it most likely would have not affected the price by enough of a significant margin.

What do you think about a disc-less Xbox One?

Source: Xbox Magazine UK