Sure there will always be. But don't expect it to be mass market and thus don't expect it to be cheap.

Wii U uses proprietry blu ray discs so there machine can't run films because Nintendo.

I think for that case digital downloads will be the way to go.

The film studios saw what that did to the music industry so there is no chance of them allowing DRM free digital downloads and having a digital download locked to an account is too easy to break.

It may be. But I also think bd is very future proof. They can adapt the media so it supports 4k movies just like they did with 3d. It's just a file, a 4k movie is just a bigger file just like 3d is, blu rag having such storage capacity can hold it, its just the players that needs upgrades, not the entire productions plants of the discs.

I see laser disc and beta max equivalent to HD DVD. Blu Ray is in an odd place. While it should be akin to VHS and DVD it finds itself as market leader in a splintered market. I know plenty of people content with DVD still and others that like streaming.

Right now on Amazon, Jurassic World on DVD only is $19.08, and you can get the Blu Ray (which includes a DVD copy as well!) for $19.64. Why wouldn't you spend extra 56 cents in case you get a Blu Ray player in the future or can share that copy with a friend who has one. At most I see a $5 premium for combo packs that include Blu Ray and DVD so easy choice to me.

I just wanted to add this because I agree, the HDDVD was more like laserdisc. It never really caught on.

However, people should understand that while this whole format war was taking place, MS was supplementing Toshiba's HDDVD players to sell for under 100$, while also getting an hddvd addon. MS is part of the reason why it took so long for BR to take off, and of course it made sense to do so, when their main console competitor was using 99$ internal br drives...low consumer adoption would keep that price high, and help stave off future price-cuts.

Nope, I had to go to specialist stores to buy LaserDiscs while blu-ray is available everywhere. They were also always a lot more expensive than the VHS version if available at all. Blu-rays aren't much of a mark up from dvds anymore, and can be found pretty cheap as well. Blu-ray also routinely reaches over 50% market share with popular releases.

People have turned away from buying movies though, streaming is more popular.
For now physical is still the far larger market for owning movies.

http://www.tubefilter.com/2015/01/06/digital-movie-download-revenue-climbs-to-1-5-billion-in-2014/
1.5 billion digital movies sales vs 6.9 billion physical movie sales, of which about 2.7 billion is blu-ray (sits around 40% market share)

Digital rental services are huge though, predicted for 2015:
Online rental: 49%
Kiosk: 18% (I guess that's physical rental?)
VOD: 15%
Store: 6%
Netflix Mail: 6%
Online transactional: 5%
http://www.statista.com/statistics/258447/distribution-of-movie-and-tv-rental-market-revenue-in-the-us-by-source/

So it seems 'owning movies' will be down to just 11% of the total market in 2015. (in the US)



4K blu-ray might be next Laserdisc. Sitting there next to blu-ray until 8K video will replace both.

Oh, no. This argument again... Blu-ray is in vastly different consumer market landscape than DVD was. So it will never have the same market penetration percentage DVD had, but it is the de facto choice in a physical optical media. And a very vibrant and viable one at that.

Yeah, even 3D Blu Rays, despite me not knowing anyone that owns any, can be found at Best Buy and similar stores in decent numbers.  I am not sure how long 4K will take, but my guess is long time as still have people who claim little to no difference between DVD and Blu Ray.