When Xbox announced a new feature last month that lets you digitize existing physical game collections, I immediately thought of the Xbox One. Disc-to-digital seems like a clever new feature for Xbox, perfectly timed as a response to Sony killing PlayStation discs. But the reality is that it has been 15 years in the making and is now a big part of Xbox's ongoing game preservation efforts.
Ahead of the launch of the Xbox One in 2013, Microsoft made a key decision to uniquely identify discs. Sources familiar with Microsoft's plans tell me the company was exploring the idea of true Xbox digital ownership in 2011, including digital gifting, rec …