Xbox boss Phil Spencer insists Microsoft still "supportive" of physical media

Xbox boss Phil Spencer has addressed lingering questions around the company stance on physical media following last year's leaks of an "adorably all-digital" Xbox Series X refresh, saying Microsoft continues to be "supportive" of the medium, and insisting "getting rid of physical, that's not a strategic thing for us."

An all-digital (and distinctly cylindrical) new Xbox Series X design first surfaced as part of a mammoth leak of official Microsoft documentation during last year's court battle with the FTC over its Activision Blizzard acquisition plans. However, when Spencer later acknowledged the leak, he called its contents "old emails and documents", insisting that "so much has changed".

But still, the possibility of an all-digital new Xbox has continued to loom, whether that be a mid-cycle refresh or a future console, particularly following news of major layoffs acoss Microsoft's games retail teams. And Spencer has now shed a little more light on Microsoft's perspective on physical media as part of an interview for journalist Stephen Totilo's Game File.

"We are supportive of physical media," Spencer told Totilo, "but we don't have a need to drive that disproportionate to customer demand". Elaborating more plainly, Spencer continued, "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 on the things that a majority of the customers want. And right now, a majority of our customers are buying games digitally."

The implication then would seem to be that an all-digital future for Xbox is perhaps inevitable, if not necessarily imminent. Spencer observed that "fewer suppliers and fewer buyers" for disc drives means "the cost of the drive does have an impact", since gaming consoles have "kind of become the last consumer electronic device that has a drive".

But for now, it doesn't look like Xbox has immediate plans to drop support for physical media. "I will say our strategy does not hinge on people moving all-digital," Spencer concluded, "and getting rid of physical, that's not a strategic thing for us."

Spencer's conversation with Game File follows last week's confirmation Microsoft is - as heavily rumoured - planning to release four previously Xbox-exclusives first-party games across PlayStation 5 and Switch. Microsoft hasn't yet formally announced what those games will be, but reports currently point to Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush, and Pentiment.