Collecting for Xbox Nowadays is Terrible

Three new major Xbox studio games are releasing within the next 12 months: Halo: Campaign Evolved, Fable (2027), and Gear of War: E-Day. These are the highest-profile games currently tied to the identity of Xbox, already having a far-too-expensive collector’s edition ready for pre-order. Yet, none of them seem to have a true physical edition available to Xbox players.

You can pre-orders them right now, but they all “require content download” aside from whatever may actually be on the disc. Save for Gears of War: E-Day, but based on the collector’s edition seems to only feature one disc. Why is this important? Well, if a game is over 50 GBs in data, it won’t fit on one disc for Xbox players. For comparison, the discs would essentially function the same as Nintendo’s atrocious “game-key cards.” What is the point of buying physically if you need to go online to get the rest of the game anyway?

Disc Install Sizes

One of the main disadvantages of being an Xbox player is that the physical editions are printed on ordinary Blu-ray discs that can only fit up to 50 GBs. In the past, publishers have elected to simply put the game on two discs like with the Xbox One release of Red Dead Redemption 2. But nowadays, although Blu-ray discs are cheaper than say, Switch 2 game cards, publishers will cheap out on collectors by fitting only a portion of the game on disc. 

This disadvantage is apparent when there’s a PS5 version of the same game. The standard for PS5 games is to use 4K ultra-HD discs capable of holding up to 100 GBs. To bring up a good example, Konami elected to have the whole PS5 version of Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater on disc, but not for the Xbox Series X version. It would’ve easily fit on two discs, yet released physically as, effectively, a game-key disc. That means if you have slow internet, want to truly own the game, or have no internet access whatsoever—you are out of luck. Why would the publisher even maintain this discrepancy? During the PS4 and Xbox One era, since both used 50 GB discs, if either version required two discs to fit everything, both versions had them.

Distributing on Xbox

The larger problem with Xbox physicals aren’t only how many discs are used, but other compounding issues that deter a game from being truly physical—or from being released at all.

There is already an identity crisis with the brand of Xbox, causing its popularity and user base to decline. Developers and publishers see this as well, to the point they might be apathetic towards releasing on Xbox. Why print on disc to such a small audience, already decimated by the advent of the digital storefront? Some third-party releases will have timed exclusivity blocking it from coming to Xbox, or will simply release later because there’s no demand on launch. This “misses the timing” for a physical release, then becoming exclusively digital on Xbox. Adding to this is the weaker Xbox Series S console, requiring extra development time just to release a modern game on the Xbox platform at all—sometimes delaying a day and date release.

How pervasive is this issue for collecting? Well, if you are looking to buy a game from a third-party studio that would normally release everywhere, you have to question if it’ll ever release for us at all. On top of that, there is the concerning pattern that if a game gets an Xbox port later, it loses marketing momentum and never bothers to release physically. This is the case for Final Fantasy XVI, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade and Black Myth: Wukong.

Of course, if it was ever in consideration, none of these would have fit on a single disc anyway. However, Square Enix did uniquely use two 100 GB discs so that they could fit Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on them, for PlayStation players. Proving that publishers could, if they put in the effort. It isn’t that it is a privilege to be on Sony’s ecosystem, but that it is a disadvantage to be on Xbox. Therefore, don’t expect anything if the game doesn’t release the same day as other platforms. The best you can hope for is a rerelease, complete edition of a game—with its now bigger install size to contend with. 

Disconnect

There are times where the Xbox version does come out day and date with other platforms, sometimes from an in-house Xbox studio. Yet we still don’t get a physical release, while PS5 users do. The prime example being Gear of War: Reloaded, all on disc solely for the PS5. Now that just doesn’t make sense, as if the insult of core Xbox games releasing on its rival platform isn’t enough.

Earlier, I mentioned the new Fable (2027) has preorders up. First thing: it is yet another Xbox game releasing on PS5. Second detail: Both consoles are getting a physical release. The third thing should not come as a surprise, considering the large size of the game. The Xbox version is listed as “requiring content download,” with the PS5 version mentioning no such thing. Xbox is the publisher, and they can’t be bothered to give its core user base a second disc.

Nintendo puts them to shame, still putting their first party games fully on the cartridge, affording the most expensive form of physical games media to manufacture today. It costs Nintendo around $15 for each cartridge, a definitively damaging margin. Blu-ray discs are nowhere near that cost to produce.

Concessions

It is always a question, even when Xbox is confirmed as a platform for release, whether it’ll truly be printed on that disc. It is now normal for Xbox users to be ignored entirely, requiring those of us with multiple platforms to buy the PS5 or Switch/Switch 2 version “just to have it,” even if the Xbox is our daily driver. Collecting has gotten so bad that even having a Xbox One physical version of a game meant for current-gen consoles (that can barely perform) becomes our last result. Not to mention how the cross-generation period between Xbox One and Xbox Series that might’ve only just ended, has affected our collecting.

You know those cases that say both Xbox One and Xbox Series X on them? You can bet money that the only version present on that disc is the Xbox One version. While convenient for the general consumer, it is a bane for collectors who want the best version available to them. Rarely, there are times where the Xbox One and Series X copies are separate. But like with Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, you will find that the Series X version isn’t on disc anyway.

Solutions

It didn’t used to be this bad. Even when the DRM requirements of the initial launches of both Xbox One and Series X essentially required that you go online, they reversed that decision as quickly as users criticized it. And then, when games required two discs—they got them. Some of the greatest games ever released were printed in their entirety during these periods: Grand Theft Auto V, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, The Witcher 3: Game of the Year Edition, Devil May Cry 5: Special Edition and many more. Maybe it’s because of the publishers of the games themselves; maybe it’s because developing for Xbox is a chore; maybe it’s because the audience is too small; the decline of Xbox physical releases must end.

The solutions aren’t difficult to find. When a game requires two discs to fit, then print the game on two discs. If a game has a small audience on Xbox, then bring it to a limited release distributor—just like most indie games. If a game is being ported after its initial release, then just release a new version physically on all platforms, just like it happens so often on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2. Sometimes there is no barrier, it is plain exclusionary.

The Dire State of Collecting on Xbox

As a collector of Xbox games for a few years now, I have gotten used to the disadvantages. What is really unexpected however, is the way the platform treats its core user base when it itself is the publisher of the game. The biggest games in the history of the Xbox Series consoles are not going to have a true physical release.

With the identity of the brand swaying like a pendulum, it is crucial that we collectors, perhaps the core of the core of the userbase, should not have these kinds of concessions. NINJA GAIDEN 2 Black should have an Xbox physical—so should Hellblade 2, Gears of War Reloaded, the entire Final Fantasy VII remake trilogy, DEATH STRANDING: DIRECTOR’S CUT, Silent Hill 2 (2024), and the entire Kingdom Hearts series. And dammit, should Halo: Campaign Evolved be on two damn discs without requiring another day one update just to be able to play couch co-op with my buddy.