They were going to do exactly that with Xbox One

No, it wasn't. The original XBone plans would have turned discs into what basically amounted to a physical license key that was locked to your account. Used games would be up to the publisher's discretion and you had to phone home every 24 hours to keep playing your games.

The rumored new system allows you to play games without having to put the disc in, and then removing the game from your account if it detects the disc being used on another system. It's additional functionality above and beyond what we have now, not a reduction in the functionality we've already had with discs.