Digital Foundry's John Linneman has said sources indicate Microsoft plans to continue supporting physical game discs on future Xbox hardware, prioritising backward compatibility over disc sales revenue. The reports, though unconfirmed by Microsoft, offer a contrast to Sony's approach and arrive as welcome news for players following the backlash over the PS6's disc plans.

Linneman said his sources indicated that, at least before a recent internal reset at Xbox, Microsoft intended to keep disc support so games remained playable on future consoles, possibly alongside a "disc-to-digital" scheme using an external drive. This follows Sony's decision to end physical disc production from January 2028, a move its CFO Lin Tao reaffirmed in late July despite strong community pushback, and comments from Xbox CTO Scott Van Vliet after a recent outage stating that disc-based entitlement checks should never block access to games. It also follows a leaked document suggesting Xbox 360 titles could come to PC and Microsoft's next-generation "Project Helix" console around 2027-2028.