Xbox One without a Disc Drive was considered, Says Microsoft Executive

Microsoft had reportedly considered making its latest next-generation video game console Xbox One without a disc drive, but later gave up the idea due to the size of the games that would run in several gigabytes.

This information was revealed by Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft Studios, who also added that the company discussed the idea of a "disc-less console" till the mid-2013.

"Obviously, after the announcement and E3, there was some feedback about what people wanted to change. There was a real discussion about whether we should have an optical disc drive in Xbox One or if we could get away with a purely disc-less console, but when you start looking at bandwidth and game size, it does create issues," he said. 

Both Xbox One and its rival PlayStation 4 currently allow its users to download full games thorough online store. However, since the sizes of these games sometimes run up to more than 12 GB, it was favoured that Xbox One retain its disc drive. Also the overturning of its controversial decision of having an always-online feature affected the decision of a disc-less console. It was argued by Yusuf Mehdi, chief marketing and strategy officer in June 2013 that it would have been easier for people to understand the always online feature if the consoles had run in without discs.

"So we decided - which I think was the right decision - to go with the Blu-ray drive and give the people an easy way to install a lot of content. From some of those original thoughts, you saw a lot of us really focusing on the digital ecosystem you see on other devices - thinking of and building around that," he added.