Microsoft had 'real discussion' about disc-less Xbox One

Following E3 2013, Microsoft shocked the industry by pulling a large-scale u-turn on its Xbox One DRM policy. In a new interview with OXM, Microsoft Studios general manager Phil Spencer has said that the idea of removing the disc drive completely was also discussed heavily as part of this reversal. Spencer explained that a "purely disc-less console" concept was considered following the reaction to the Xbox One console after the initial announcement, and the E3 reaction. "After the announcement and E3, there was some feedback about what people wanted to change," Spencer noted. "There was a real discussion about whether we should have an optical disc drive in Xbox One or if we could get away with a purely disc-less console, but when you start looking at bandwidth and game size, it does create issues." It was this potential issue with bandwidth available to consumers and large game downloads that eventually swayed Microsoft towards including a disc drive on the Xbox One, claims Spencer. "We decided - which I think was the right decision - to go with the Blu-ray drive and give the people an easy way to install a lot of content," he added. "From some of those original thoughts, you saw a lot of us really focusing on the digital ecosystem you see on other devices - thinking of and building around that." Of course, removing the disc drive would have made a lot more sense if the original "always-online" DRM features for the Xbox One were kept, since discs would have been essentially worthless without an activation code.