Rumor: Next XBOX Won’t Have A DISC DRIVE. Double Wut

Here’s a rumor upside your head: the next Xbox isn’t going to have a disc drive. Yep. Well, I mean, yep as in that’s the rumor. Do I buy it? Not at all.

Kotaku:

As  Kotaku  revealed  last month, work has begun on the next Xbox. It’s codenamed “Durango”.

Today, website  MCVUK  reported a source revealed that the next Xbox apparently won’t have a disc drive. Instead, according toMCVUK, the next Xbox “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.”

The console,  MCVUK  added, is slated for a 2013 release.

The source supposedly told  MCVUK  this info was issued under “the strictest NDA” the source has seen.

This rumor differs from what  Kotaku  previously heard–namely, that the next Xbox will upgrade its disc format to Blu-ray.

If  MCVUK‘s report is true, then what would a disc-less system mean for backwards compatibility? What about as an entertainment device? A disc-less console would make it impossible to watch Blu-ray movies without an add-on peripheral.

Kotaku  is following up with Microsoft and will update this post should the company respond.

I’m not sold on this. It is too brazen for Microsoft to jump completely off the disc drive (puns!) at this point. Am I wrong?