Disc Drive Supply Chain Is Reportedly "Collapsing"

It's Not Just Discs, As The Supply Chain To Make Disc Drives Is Reportedly "Collapsing" Xbox Published Aug 27, 2026, 11:13 AM EDT Joshua Robertson is an editor for TheGamer, having working in news, guides, features, and reviews since 2022. They have written thousands of news stories, ranging from industry-breaking events, to smaller, more personal community pieces, and have covered several high-profile showcases such as The Game Awards and Nintendo Directs. Joshua is considered an expert in soulslikes, horror, JRPGs and everything Final Fantasy, having written extensive coverage for massively popular online titles like Final Fantasy 14. Sign in to your TheGamer account Earlier this week, Xbox finally announced its long-rumored disc-to-digital program, which will allow users with physical Xbox games to redeem temporary digital licenses for the same game, as long as they have the disc. It's basically a soft announcement that Xbox will be going all-digital in the near future, just like PlayStation, but at least discs will still have their worth down the line. However, the way in which this differs from PlayStation's strategy to cease the manufacturing of discs, presumably because it doesn't want to anymore, is that Xbox's decision to go digital is seemingly a necessity. Xbox Is Reportedly Going Digital Over Disc Drives Xbox In a new report from Windows Central's Jez Corden, he claims that Xbox going digital is "less about the discs and more about the disc drives themselves." Corden goes on to claim that his sources have told him that the supply chain for components required to actually manufacture disc drives is currently "collapsing", as companies continue to move away from producing the tech as people go more digital. From a purely business perspective, it makes sense. If the PlayStation 6 isn't going to include a disc drive, and presumably neither will whatever Project Helix turns out to be, then making disc drives for an audience of purely Blu-Ray movie enjoyers isn't exactly cost-friendly. Disc drives going away would probably be the death of physical discs as a whole. It's just another sign that, no matter how hard people rally against PlayStation online, it sounds like internal production is shifting so radically that companies can't change their minds even if they wanted to. The physical media apocalypse is rapidly approaching, so we may want to start turning conversation towards digital ownership rather than demanding discs that are seemingly gone for good once 2028 rolls around. Brand Microsoft Original Release Date November 10, 2020 Original MSRP (USD) $499 Operating System Proprietary (Windows-based) Processor Custom AMD 8-core Zen 2 3.8 GHz Resolution 720p - 4K UHD