It looks like Microsoft will be discontinuing physical storage media for Xbox

Microsoft appears to be preparing to ditch physical storage media for Xbox.

Physical games may soon become optional

It is Windows Central editor @jezcorden at They also appear to be adding support for Activision Blizzard games, and will instead pay third-party companies for customer support.

We think the rumors are true because Microsoft just fired 1900 across multiple divisions at Xbox – plus Blizzard's president left the company after 20 years, and Blizzard's game was canceled as a result of all the downsizing.

However, what's even more interesting is the revelation that Microsoft is “entirely” involved in game downloads, including its new consoles. This has been rumored before, and this supports what was previously revealed. We consider it likely that the company will, however, wait another generation before the matter is completely over, perhaps doing like Sony and selling the drive separately.

The new consoles, which are expected to be more of a 1.5 upgrade than a 2.0 upgrade (which supposedly may not even happen 2028,) was leaked last September in connection with a lawsuit:

“It was the FTC case against Microsoft that revealed a lot. In fact, this was supposed to be deleted from the case papers, but someone messed it up. There have long been rumors that there will be new upgrades for Xbox and Playstation next year, and now We know that Microsoft intends to not only upgrade the internals, but launch the Xbox Series

In fact, this isn't a “Pro” version of the Xbox Series The performance of the current model is approx. The new model does not have a disc drive.“