Solid state disk drives are the future. Well, it's actually the present for high end pc's. If done correctly, a SSD will allow nearly instantaneous on/off and say goodbye to loading screens. By the time the next gen of consoles comes around, I suspect a 250 GB SSHD will be about $50. The real trick will be if one of the console makers decides to use a new architecture for transferring data, as SATA/PATA is far too slow to actually use a SSD to it's full advantage (or they could just use the SSD on the RAM bus, so the RAM could potentially be the size of the drive). Games are still going to come on optical media, however, and require an install. They're just the cheapest and easiest way to mass produce and distribute. Unless, of course, everyone on earth gets high speed internet connections.
Now think about how nice that would be for a second. Now say goodbye. The next generation of consoles are not going to be cutting edge high end machines. They'll be more powerful than this gen, of course, but I doubt that MS or Sony is going to want to absorb billions of dollars of losses again just to watch Nintendo crush them with a money making cheaper piece of hardware.
JMO
