To be honest, I thought it would be Sony to do this first:

Yeah no way does a disk drive cost a 100 bucks. It's obviously a way to entice people to purchase the digital only console. MS have been trying to push this for a while now

Personally I'm fine with console manufacturers doing this, but I still want physical media to be relevant.

Don't worry, retailers will probably make them hell since obviously they won't rake in much profit  if they were to sell an only-digital platform at their store :P You'll have to go find to your local Microsoft store (Does that even exist ?).

I misread that title so badly.... Good to know this console hasn't had it's package removed though!

Will be strange to see the general reaction to this, I would think mostly negative since if you're interested in saving a few bucks on the console you would be thinking about buying some older disc based titles on the cheap.

This is fools gold.

I expected this move years ago already. What I don't understand though....1. wasn't their 4K Bluray player a selling point all the time? and 2. They might state the X1 sells at 299,- , but they've been selling it for 250 or less with 2 or more games included for ages, at least where I live. Imho this sounds like the logical step in the all digital GaaS, always online and no old game sales future MS is planning to lure us in, but also somehow reeks of added profits because they've likely been selling their consoles at a loss for some time. That said 100 for a disc drive seem unrealistic and excessive.

I don't understand the correlation of coming out with this device and 'winning the Spring' since Sony won't be at E3. That seems like an extreme reach. Also you can get an Xbox one S if you wait for ~200 with a disk drive (Gamestop sells them refurbished for $199) so unless its significantly less than that, it seems like a nonstarter.

Ugh, here we go

I said ages ago Sony should release a super slim with no disc drive but a 2TB HDD. I wonder how retailers will react to this.

The article also mentions "In addition, the company also has a revised Xbox One S SKU that is targeted for later in the year that focuses solely on cost reduction but does feature a disc-drive for those who still prefer the traditional way to buy your games."

So in addition to removing the cost of the UHD Blu-Ray drive a general revision for cost reduction purposes could well knock the $100 off the price. We have seen Black Friday deals at $199 for 2 years now and regular $249 bundles so I wouldn't be surprised if the standard S became $199 and the disc-less S was $149 (standalone console) especially when you consider the profits made from digital content a couple of game sales and the hardware loss is made back up.