After a lifetime of PlayStation fandom, Microsoft's handling of the digitalization era of gaming is a bittersweet pill to swallow. While Sony has been largely ignoring outrage from its decision to end disc production in 2028, Xbox is going about the shift in a slightly different way - namely, making sure your library of physical titles doesn't become an expensive paperweight when the new generation rolls around.
The brand has now globally launched its disc-to-digital program, allowing users to copy their physical games to digital formats, albeit still with a single license attached. That's great news for Xbox fans, while they'll continue to play all the same games when both brands inevitably go all-digital in the next generation, us PS6-ers will be stuck rebuying our shelves of cases digitally to keep the good times going. Anyone getting stuck into backing up their game library this week, though, might hit a storage snag.
The Xbox Series X will accept any USB 3.0 hard drive you have lying around, but if you're out of storage, I'd recommend grabbing the 2TB WD Black P10. It's $131.99 at Amazon right now, a couple bucks more expensive than Seagate's external hard drive ($129.99), but it comes with a month of Game Pass as well.
The only Xbox Series X with a disc drive still attached has 802GB of usable storage space (unless you grabbed a special edition with the full 2TB whack). Considering Gears of War E-Day rocks up at 120GB, Baldur's Gate 3 requires about 150GB, and The Witcher 3 Remastered will need 50GB, that internal hard drive isn't going to last you too long.
Of course, this is a balancing act we've been playing for years. If you haven't already invested in one of the best Xbox Series X hard drives, you're likely used to rotating your games through your system storage. That's fine for 2026, and even 2027, but if Microsoft does go for the all-digital future the industry is revving up for - all that uninstalling and reinstalling could get far more difficult.
You won't be able to run the games directly off your existing HDD (either locally or, in all likelihood, using disc-to-digital's cloud service), but you'll be able to keep them backed up to play on the new generation console without qualms. In the meantime, you'll simply need to move the file over to your system storage to play digitally whenever you feel the itch for one of your old favorites.
There's a but here, and it's the same one we've spoken about time and time again in 2026. Storage prices are incredibly high these days. A drive that would have cost an easy $50 just last year is now a $120 - $200 investment. It's worth taking advantage of the tech you already have wherever possible, and prioritizing cheaper alternatives as well. Here, for example, we're only talking about hard drives. An SSD will give you faster transfer times, but considering we only need to store our games, not run them, it's well worth dodging even higher solid-state prices in 2026.
So what hidden costs are those going disc-to-digital going to need to be aware of? An Xbox game's install size can range from about 30GB for a lighter title all the way through to 170-190GB for chunkier releases. Let's split the difference; say each game in your library will take up 75GB of storage space. For the sake of ease, we'll assume you're keeping your existing console storage the same. Assuming that you're leaving your system's drive free from backups, and relying on external storage to digitize these games.
If you have 10-13 cases on your display, you'll need 1TB of extra storage. 14-26 discs will need 2TB of space. If you have more than 26 titles, you'll need to go for the full 4TB whack, which will see you through up to 53 physical games.
Right now, the average price of a 1TB external hard drive (from a well-reviewed brand like Western Digital or SanDisk) at Amazon sits at roughly $122. If you include cheaper, untested brands in that list, you're looking at an average $101 price tag.
Should you have more than 14 games, you're looking at spending an average of $135 at Amazon on a 2TB external HDD. Those who need the full 4TB will be spending an average of $187.23 (Amazon).
You can avoid the problem altogether if you only have a handful of titles, sure. The Xbox Series X's internal storage will be able to handle about 10 average-sized releases while still keeping some space free for updates, screenshots, streaming apps, and smaller downloads.
If you've got a stack of boxes on the shelves, though, you're looking at a minimum spend of about $100 to get them all digitized.
Microsoft's softening the landing here, certainly, but there are hidden costs for those truly making the most of its new disc-to-digital system.
- See all hard drives at Amazon
We're also hunting down all the best external hard drives for gaming as well as the best PS5 SSDs if you're staying on Sony's side of the fence. You can also check out all the best Xbox Series X accessories for more.
