While Sony has already confirmed that it is shutting down the production of PlayStation discs in January 2028, it looks like Xbox doesn’t have similar plans. According to a new job listing, the company is looking for a “Supply Strategist” who would work on its Supply Chain team.
The job listing notes that responsibilities include coordinating “the launch of physical Xbox games across all platforms.” The Supply Strategist will also have to “lead development and oversee execution of global supply positioning strategies across all stages of the product life cycle, ensure that inventory is positioned to deliver working capital/cost/service goals, and oversee the sales and channel execution of those games.”
The fact that Xbox is continuing to invest in its supply chain management indicates that the company doesn’t have any plans to end the production of discs for its games. As one Reddit user has noted, however, this isn’t a brand-new job position. Rather, the position has already existed, and Xbox is simply trying to replace whoever was in that role before this. It is worth noting that Xbox would be unlikely to pursue filling out this role if it didn’t plan on continuing with physical releases of games for its platforms.
While the company hasn’t yet made any outright statements about what it plans to do with physical games in the future, CEO Asha Sharma has said that it wants to “make sure people have a choice” between physical and digital media. “I know players love physical media, and I know there’s a lot of benefits in digital media, and I want to make sure people have a choice.”
On the subject of Project Helix – the company’s next-gen console – Sharma was hesitant to offer any concrete details regarding whether it would have a disc drive or not. However, she spoke about how affordability is going to be a big factor in the potential success of the console.
“This next generation, we have to be thinking about efficiency and affordability alongside performance. As an industry, we’re in the middle of ‘Rampocalypse’. All of the industry needs to start to innovate on affordability and efficiency. That is something that we have not had to do [previously].
“But with the crisis that’s currently happening in hardware and components, it is absolutely something all of us need to be thinking about and innovating on and giving people more choice in terms of how they play their console and how they purchase their console.”
In the meantime, Xbox has continued to offer more options to its users by recently launching its disc-to-digital initiative. Through this, users can convert their Xbox One or Xbox Series X game discs into digital licenses, allowing players to start playing without having to keep the disc in the console. However, the company has also noted that this won’t allow players to simply give their old discs away.
“A disc-to-digital license is associated with the qualifying game disc. Without possession of the qualifying disc, you may lose the disc-to-digital licensing benefits. For example, if you lose, sell, give away, or otherwise no longer possess a qualifying disc, access to associated disc-to-digital licenses may be limited or revoked.”
