According to a recent report that was posted online, a new Xbox One S model expected to launch this year will not have a disc drive. The new report did not name any sources.
Disc-less Xbox One S to arrive in May
We also know from Windows Central that the disc-less console is expected to arrive in May. Pre-orders are believed to become available starting with the middle of April, so not that long from now. This pretty much confirms other rumors that we’ve seen before about the possible launch date of this console.
Windows Central also reported that Microsoft is planning to announce a new custom-design Fortnite Edition console. However, the report did not specify whether that would be the disc-less console, the Xbox One X or the regular S.
No confirmation from Microsoft yet
We’ve also seen tech outlet Thurrott mentioning last year that such type of disc-less console would probably cost less than $200. The same report suggested that users of this rumored console would be able to take their physical media games in Microsoft stores so that they could then exchange them for download codes to their Xbox Live account.
However, we haven’t had yet any confirmation from Microsoft about this Xbox One S model. Therefore, we don’t currently know for sure if we should really expect a console without any disc drive or not.
The Xbox One S was launched by the tech giant back in August 2016, while one year later, in June 2017, we’ve seen the Xbox Game Pass being launched by the company. At the moment, since there are more than 200 downloadable titles that could replace the optical media drive, it only makes sense for Microsoft to drop this costly component.
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