Microsoft officially announced a new version of the Xbox One S without a disc player during the last episode of Inside Xbox. It will have a 1TB hard drive and a price of $250. Microsoft says it will lower its price when necessary so that it is always cheaper than the normal Xbox One S.
For starters, the Xbox One S All-Digital does not seem very attractive if it sells for that price and includes three fairly popular games. Minecraft and Sea of Thieves are available on Xbox Game Pass, while Forza Horizon 3 is a 2016 game that already has a sequel to Microsoft’s on-demand service.
We hope to keep at least a $50 difference between the Xbox One S and the digital version – Lawrence Hryb, Microsoft
That means that although the price of the Xbox One S All-Digital is technically $250, sometimes it will be even less than that.
For example, Microsoft currently offers several Xbox One S packs, including one with The Division 2, for $250. According to what Hryb said, the Xbox One S All-Digital should now be at $200. For now, however, advance orders maintain a price of $250.
“Microsoft suggests a price, but the specific offers vary by vendor,” a Microsoft spokesperson told Kotaku colleagues via email.
The suggested retail price for the Xbox One S All-Digital Edition is $ 50 less than the Xbox One S and we hope to keep at least this price difference between the two consoles after its release on May 7.
The All-Digital Edition of Xbox One S is exactly the same as the Xbox One S, only without an optical reader so it will not be able to read your physical discs. Instead, players must download Microsoft Store games. To help something else with it, it comes with Minecraft, Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 3 pre-installed.
The Xbox One S All-Digital is designed for an online ecosystem, and therefore Microsoft will include a promotion that will offer three months of Game Pass for $1, plus a free month of Xbox Live Gold. Here it is necessary to emphasize that after the period of three months, the usual rate of 10 dollars per month for Game Pass will have to be paid.
For only a small discount of $50, the possible owners of the All-Digital would be giving up the optical unit of the console, and with it the possibility of taking advantage of older and cheaper used games, not only of this generation but also from the previous consoles, thanks to Microsoft’s backward compatibility. For people who only intend to download games in digital format may be a better and cheaper option, but it is not as aggressive as one might have expected after having seen how the Xbox One has fallen behind its predecessor in this generation of consoles.
