http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/exclusive-no-disc-drive-for-next-xbox/092534

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=465977

MCV has learnt that Microsoft has been telling partners that the Next Xbox will NOT include a disc drive.

The briefings have been issued under what MCV’s source describes as “the strictest NDA” they have ever encountered.

Although the console will not include a disc drive, it will offer compatibility with some sort of interchangeable solid-state card storage, although it is not known whether this will be proprietary or a more standard format such as SD.

Furthermore, a 2013 launch date for the hardware has been confirmed.

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well for me it looks like another bullshit

Price for 16gb usb on ebay is 8-10£, for 32gb is 12-15£. I guess that microsoft&partners can get the price for 32gb for about 8-9£. That eliminates need for big hdd drive. Every console will have maybe 16Gb flash onboard memory. Movies&Films will be streamed. Cloud service. For 2 years this could be reality. And for price of an bluray drive they can add kinect 2.0 onboard. If this path is chosen, for me it's a good improvement.

No disc drive? Won't load used games (previous rumor) ?

I hope MS reveals something at E3 cuz I'm really getting tired of these rumors.

I hope carteidges make a return.

Someone answer this for me -

With no disc drive, how will the machine be BC?

With a blu ray / DVD add on that you will pay extra for, for film playback and game BC

No drive means no playing your DVDs on it. Many people use their games console as a DVD player. It's a nice idea but a loss of what some might consider a major function could hurt them, not everyone has high bandwidth speeds to allow streaming movies or TV. Heck, no playing your old games on it either.

Memory Cards are still more expensive then Blu-Rays, yet the player itself is a moving part that could break and expensive in itself.

If true, unsure if a good move. (Unless they charge extra for an extenal add on drive. They do love their extras. :P )

What a crap rumor

Imagine how much a game shipped on a 32GB flash card would cost. I don't even want to think about a 64GB one... Nintendo 64 cartridges would look cheap in comparison.

Bad idea. Very bad idea. So bad that I can't believe it.

Discs are and will always be far cheaper than cards, so going this route will mean higher prices just because of the card. Add the usual increase because "it's a new gen and it's harder/pricier to develop for" and we could see the price of the games rise to 80/90 € on the nextbox but only 70/80 € for the PS4 (assuming they will use BD). And that's without on-line passes and DLCs.

And, as Carl said, no disc drive means no BC, but also less useful as a media-player, one of their original goals.

Of course, they can have digital distribution in mind, so they could launch the console with an HDD of at least 1TB to make it more accessible, but even then, internet speeds/quality are not the same everywhere, and with game size increasing to +20GB that becomes a very big problem.

So I don't believe it's true, but if it is, then the nextbox will end 3rd, by a lot.

as if, i honestly don't think this would happen. it seems so....crazy