Xbox One is finally adding the ability to eject discs with your controller

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Hopefully we can all start ejecting discs from our couch soon

(Image credit: Microsoft)

Six and a half years into its lifespan, Xbox One is finally getting the ability to eject discs from your controller.

Members of the Xbox Insider Program noticed the new feature and shared their joy on Reddit. Though it hasn't rolled out to all Xbox One owners via a general update yet, anyone is free to join the Insider Program just by downloading the hub on the Xbox Store. If you have the update, you can pop the disc out of your Xbox One simply by hovering over the dashboard tile for disc-based media and pressing "X".

Sadly, you can't then press "Y" to have the console extend a mechanical arm that puts the disc back in its case and then grabs the one you want to play next. You'll still need the personal touch to make that happen.

Joking aside, ejecting with the controller is a fan-requested feature that's genuinely useful in all kinds of scenarios. It can make using the console more accessible for people who have trouble pressing the hardware button, or even if that's not an issue, there's a very real possibility that you've forgotten which button on the console does what by now or were never all that sure to begin with. Even if you know where it is, sometimes those eject buttons get unreliable as consoles age, and pressing "X" is a lot easier than uncoiling a large paper clip and poking it into a tiny hole.

Plus, there's nothing like making a physical object move IRL with a single press of a button to make you feel like you're a technowizard living in the sci-fi future. I just tried it with my desktop computer and felt a surge of power as the dusty disc tray emerged.

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.