Recently I heard of a plan for Xbox to start expanding their support for physical games, at least certain titles for the Series X|S and Xbox One, anyway. This would allow you to tie them to your Xbox account, and download the game as a Digital title, making it able to play most anywhere you have access to said account (other supported Xbox consoles, PC, etc) without needing to carry around the disk. Or, in the case of digital-only systems like the Series S, able to play it when otherwise you could not previously.
I got a message this morning from Xbox that this program is now in effect.
Now my Series X has a disk drive, but frankly, I don’t use it other than as a Blueray player… and I only own one Blueray movie (“The Hobbit”), so to say it doesn’t get much use would be an overstatement. But I keep meaning to buy games on disk, but I just haven’t gotten around to it, and why go out of my way to do so, when I can just buy it digitally? But now that Sony has brought the whole digital rights to game ownership into the forefront again, maybe it would be a good time to start building a physical library for my Xbox?
I think that might be a good idea.
Now then, I’ve been thinking about one game in particular, from a series that normally I would never even consider, that being Madden. Now don’t get me wrong. I love NFL football, I’ve been a fan of the Rams since the 1970’s, from LA to St. Louis, and now back to LA. Through good times and bad, that’s been my team.
This year was supposed to be “Our Year”, having built a damn Juggernaut, at least on paper. But with Garrett out on IR, Puka injured and possibly getting suspended, and Stafford one bad hit from being effectively retired, I’m feeling pretty worried about our chances, even just three weeks into the season. But with Madden 27, it need not be so…
I could play the season we should be having, rather than what we’ve had to put up with. That loss in Australia? Erased. The Refs screwing us in Denver? Fixed. And so on, and so forth, playing the season as it could have been, with Myles and Puka playing the games, and I could enjoy every moment… even if I can’t enjoy it right now.
I hate EA. I hate everything Madden stands for. I was a huge fan of the old ESPN NFL football games on the Playstation 2, but Madden bought the NFL game rights, and I’ve never bought a football game ever since.
But now? When I can not only have the game on disk in perpetuity, and have it digitally for as long as Xbox supports that version on their store, even if EA isn’t supporting online play any longer? yeah, that sounds like a good place to start.
Anyway, I miss dominating in NFL football, even if only in single-player mode… and if any team is going to dominate on Madden 27, it should be the full-strength LA Rams!
My birthday is in two weeks. I think I should let my wife know I want Madden 27 on disk for the Xbox Series X, since it is eligible for the physical to digital conversion program (according to Google, anyway).