Could Xbox Helix Strike Back Against PS6 With a Disc Drive?

A 13-Year-Old Burn, Still Smoldering

Some wounds in the console wars never fully close. As reported by Push Square, there is still “a deep-seated resentment among some Xbox enthusiasts” for Shuhei Yoshida’s 2013 video showing exactly how to share games on PS4, a 30-second clip that helped bury the Xbox One before it ever really got started. It was PlayStation’s most theatrical knockout punch in recent memory.

Now, 13 years later, Sony has announced it will stop manufacturing physical games in January 2028. And so the question circulating online this weekend is a deliciously ironic one: could Microsoft’s next console, Xbox Helix, recommit to physical media and turn the tables?

What Linneman’s Sources Are Saying

The conversation was kicked off by comments from Digital Foundry’s John Linneman, which went viral over the weekend. According to Push Square’s coverage, Linneman said his sources indicated Microsoft had planned to include a disc drive in Xbox Helix. He stressed, however, that he is uncertain of the situation following the arrival of new CEO Asha Sharma. He also flagged a crucial caveat: the drive may have been intended for legacy support only, meaning it would play your old discs but make no commitment to new ones.

That distinction matters a lot. A console that plays your old Xbox One discs is a convenience feature. A console that actively supports a new physical software ecosystem is a different kind of statement entirely.

The Math Is Messier Than the Meme

For all the social media energy urging Microsoft to seize this PR moment, Push Square makes a compelling case that the realities of the market complicate things significantly.

First, Xbox’s physical retail presence is already thin. Boxed Xbox games can still be found in US stores, but as Push Square notes, physical game retailers have largely disappeared in the UK, and the brand has “practically evaporated in Asia.” If Microsoft wanted to leverage physical media as a competitive wedge, it would first need to rebuild the shelf space to put games on.

Second, Xbox’s own track record with physical media this generation is not exactly a beacon of commitment. Push Square points to recent examples including Halo: Campaign Evolved requiring a download on PS5, and Bethesda titles like DOOM: The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle shipping with literal megabytes of data on the disc. That is not a studio ecosystem primed to champion boxed media.

Third, and maybe most tellingly, the numbers are stark. According to Circana analyst Mat Piscatella, as cited by Push Square, PlayStation physical software outsells Xbox physical software in the US “by a multiple now far higher than the install base gap.” Physical media already makes up just 15 percent of Sony’s software sales at most. For Xbox, it is a fraction of that fraction.

Push Square also raises a point about what fills the void if Sony does step back from physical retail. The likeliest beneficiary, the article argues, is Nintendo and its Switch 2 Game Key Cards, not Microsoft.

Sony Has Not Revealed Its PS6 Plans Either

It is worth noting that Sony has not announced whether PS6 will support physical media in any form. Push Square suggests the company would almost certainly offer at least an optional disc drive accessory for legacy compatibility, given how many PS4 and PS5 discs exist in circulation. Going fully digital with no backward compatibility path for physical libraries would be a significant consumer relations problem.

So the scenario where Microsoft supports physical media and Sony does not may be less clean than the meme-makers are imagining. Both companies may end up offering some form of disc support, just with different levels of enthusiasm attached.

Microsoft is also, as Push Square points out, in an active period of staff cuts and a sharpened focus on profitability. A symbolic hardware feature chosen primarily for social media cachet seems like a harder sell to leadership in that environment than it might have been a few years ago. The gotcha moment is theoretically possible. Whether anyone in Redmond is willing to pay for it is another question entirely.