Meanwhile game enthusiasts worldwide want it the other way round.

I bet that just means that CD-keys are coming back and that the key will be irrevocably tied to the account.

Nope.

This digital entitlement is tied to the specific disc, and it will move from account to account if you swap the physical game with a friend or log in to a different Xbox profile and try to play a disc-based game.

The profile thing sounds goofy. Only one person on the console can play the digital version?

Honestly it sounds like they solved the problem of sharing? Like, it used to be that shit got tied to your account and it's that or the disc worked everywhere, but was required to run the copy tied to account.

Making the disc simply...move the access to copy to another account sounds actually somewhat reasonable? You can still resell it that way, second hand market can thrive on it and it even feels fair for me so...eh?

All that based on what egregiousRac quoted tho. Ain't having strength to go actually read this and I'd rather not use AI to summarise the article.

That part seems reasonable. The weird bit is that the games held by one profile on a console don't become available to everyone.

I buy a physical copy of a game. If the disk is in, my wife and I can both play it. If the disk is not in, whoever last played it can still play it but the other has to fish the disk out?

Well yeah. This is ultimately an anti-ownership thing that they’re working on. By making it digital they retain full control. They’re just dressing it up to make it sound positive.

I’m wondering if this leaves a slim gap where someone wishing to duplicate a game can install it for Person A, then take that person’s Xbox offline, then give it to Person B to use online thereafter. Both people get the game for free.

Granted, that’s a hazy workaround and pirates will probably have easier methods. Maybe they talked with license holders and accepted it as a tiny potential loss; or, more likely, they’re forcing everyone online to enable this.