As is clearly evident by the Konami ID debacle, It's doubtful that the world will ever truely emmbrace the internet as it's sole provider of content because it's unreliable and prone to failure. Blu Ray will continue to exist as long as computers crash and bandwidth pipes get clogged.

Microsoft simply wants the world to witch to downloadable data instead of hardcopy discs so that they can control the money.  Think about it if we got rid fo discs then they would OWN the movie sales.  They dont think its the best way of the future, they just want to get their hands in the money which they can not do while we still use discs! so buy as many movies as u can and don't download much

 @Alpha2 That couldn't have been said any better in any shorter of a statement. DITTO!!!

yeah I agree, the online digital market, at least to this particular point, is very unreliable and very limited in selection and quailty. There is also still something to be said about physically buying a movie, unwrapping it, and putting into your player.

Using the digital distribution method shouldn't really help no one really. Its cool how Sony allows the consumers to "hold" onto high definition discs and also when the video service is up , that'll be an optional thing for gamers/movie watchers etc. so its a win win for Sony.

Why would anyone want to download a movie? It's stupid! Can you imagine your girlfriend asking to watch The Departed and you reply with "Ok, just give XBox Live 30 minutes to download the movie & we're good." ..lol... Doesn't make any sense. ................................... PSN ID: Chuck-Norris909

I think Blu-ray will have a pretty good life span. Alpha2 stated it pretty good. Also if you add some of  the older generation who are not good with computers and or don't like them much. Plus people who like having a hard copys and big movie collections, all point to a pretty good life. Internet speeds, bandwidth, and space all suck too much and are expensive for mass market conversion of digital downloads. It will come for sure, but not for a while.

Also digital downloads for music have been around for at least 10 years and it hasn't killed the cd format yet. The industry has gone down, but they are holding out pretty good. So for huge files such as hd movies will also probably  hold out just as good when the market as a whole, starts to swicth in the direction of digital Downloads for HD movies.

Please, Digital Distribution won't kick off the way people want it to for at least another 5 to 6 years at least. I don't think the Blu-Ray camp has to worry.

i don't waste time downloading movies.... i want someting i can carry with me whenever i go and share with family and friends.

@Alpha2, I couldn't have said it any better myself.

alpha2 has it dead on.

and M$ said blu ray is pointless!  shows what they know

Alpha2 that is the best comment i have read on psu

Erm, where does the 351% increase come from? Even taking the maximum $1billion figure, that's a $700 million dollar increase, which is a 233% increase.

Alpha2 is dead on what he sd in the UK we have one of the most over rated internet providers!!!! im meant to be getting 8mb!!!! im getting less than half!! but once blu ray discs get around £15 i start buying like he//

I'm not sure if the digital market stands a chance to be honest. Not now. Give it another 5 years at least.

I didn't buy a high definition television, PS3 and 7.1 surround sound to download high definition content that has been degraded in quality to keep it at a reasonable size. Until digital content is uncompressed and not degraded, I won't be downloading anything in high definition. But WTF do I know? People have been downloading music and movies with crappy quality and DRM through iTunes (DRM has changed for a price), 360, etc. I will always prefer quality over convenience.

If music industry survives illegal digital downloading, Blu-ray will definatly survive legal movie downloading!

@killercop - Yeah man, and the thing about digital music downloads is that they are so much easier and faster to download. Most people don't care if the sound isn't as good as a CD - most people can't tell the difference - or even care if there is one. Now when it comes to movies, it's not as easy. I seriously doubt digital movie downloads will take off anytime soon. I wouldn't doubt if it took like 10 years or more for them to even become as popular as hard copies. When it comes to music I don't care about having a hard copy because we don't use CD players to listen anymore, we need the convenience of a small MP3 player. But when it comes to a movie, we watch it at home, and the convenience factor changes.

psn id: gingo...... Alpha2 is spot on and using hardware for movies will be around for years and years to come until we're at about 5 gb/s speed then the story might change especially if the internet crashing becomes non existent which might never happen

Well said Alpha2.  My 60GB PS3 was stolen (burglary) so I had to kill that PSNID (and with it, all downloads).  Bye bye Warhawk, Calling All Cars, all purchased DLC, etc...  I just got Gran Turismo 5: Prologue for my new PS3...wanna guess whether I got the Blu-Ray or downloaded it? 

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They must be crazy to think people would prefer not having a hardcopy for digital media.  Not only that, but so many tech-saavy people already believe that if it's digital, it's not wrong to steal it.  They can't be happy about that!

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Not only that, but how am I supposed to let my buddies borrow my flicks?!  Are we that seperate as a society that we don't even think about these things?

I agree that buying films on disc is way better than downloading, especially for the high def and better sound features but I found that bd films are still too expensive, come 30€ for one film, get real guys and lower your prices than everybody will be buying bd instead of dvd's!