But why would they? As a company how do they at all gain from letting us sell our digital games? That was a concession, a win for consumers to make the digital transition easier.
And we gave it away
My recollection of the events at the time:
MS said they would do something for physical games as part of having an online check-in every 24-hours. It wasn’t ready to go, they just said that was going to be a part of the plan. They would allow publishers to allow you to trade-in or trade discs. (Note: what a thrilling subordinate permission. Sounds like digital games without the convenience of being digital, with a vague promise of letting publisher’s find the benevolence to allow us to do what we want.)
We said, why have this check in for physical media if we don’t want that?
They could have had offline and online accounts. They could have made it a carrot instead of a stick. A company like Microsoft could have created options for those that wanted discs to be a form of digital instead of physical.
They took their ball and went home. They kept online accounts and one-time online setup.
They regrouped and launched a Netflix of gaming instead. By my observation, the majority of this forum love this and enjoy it. I was a skeptic but gamepass seems like a win for those invested in the Xbox platform.
TL;DR: We didn’t do anything. MS did.