Rumour: New Xbox 720 will ditch the disc drive

The gaming industry seems to be rife with intriguing rumours, with the latest suggesting Microsoft's next generation Xbox console will ditch the traditional disc drive.

A report from MCV, a British gaming magazine, broke the news on Friday, citing an unnamed source who describes the findings as "the strictest NDA (non-disclosure agreement)" they have ever come across.

"Apparently, Microsoft is sharing this information with its partners under NDA," reveals Matthew Humphries on Geek.com. "By partners we assume they mean the major publishers and any hardware companies with close ties who provide parts or peripherals for the machine."

If such a rumour were true, the lack of a disc drive would make way for online downloads, as well as a "swappable solid state card port of some kind," according to BGR's Zach Epstein.

"The Xbox 360 already supports digital content distribution models and it is expected that Microsoft will continue to increase its focus on non-physical media," adds Epstein. "At the same time, however, this new rumour counters earlier reports that the next-generation 'Xbox 720' will include Blu-ray disc support."

Microsoft would not confirm such a move when asked to comment, but a company spokesperson did inform BGR that they're "always thinking about what is next for our platform and how to continue to defy the lifecycle convention."

According to Humphries, such a move would not be without its fair share of pros and cons.

"By removing the disc drive the machine would be cheaper to make, and as everything is stored on a hard drive load times should be shorter," he shares. "Gamers will certainly complain if game pricing remained the same as physical copies, but they'd probably also appreciate potential new functions e.g. being able to pre-load a game before it launches like Steam allows."

"For now, we have to treat this as what it is: rumour and speculation. If Microsoft is planning a disc-less console, then it will have a huge impact on the games industry as a whole. In particular, the ecosystem that surrounds the sale of games would effectively be broken. There [would be] no games retailers can sell, no stock to handle, and the used games market would be dead in the water."

An Xbox without a disc drive. Would you welcome such a console into your home? Let us know in the comments below.