So what physical medium will Microsoft be using for their next gen console?

[Squilliam]

AdventWolf said:

Squilliam said:
What physical medium in say a couple of years time? Hmm, how about digital distribution and catridges!

Physically an optical drive adds about $100 to the baseline cost of a console when you factor in the required HDD, Ram, packaging and optical drive itself. So much extra stuff has to be added to a console to make up for the deficiencies of the optical drive format. My guess for the next generation they will keep the console simple.

Xbox next Arcade = 10GB of fast flash storage + cartridge media.
Xbox next Premium = 10GB of fast storage + cartridge media + HDD
Xbox next Elite = same as above with optical drive for BC.

The transition to 450mm wafers is upon us! Flash is just getting cheaper.

That would be tight, or if disks are still used then Microsoft should use bluray since there is suppose to be a good portion

of people that buy the PS3 for the bluray player. Though it might be a little late by then.

They don't want people to buy an Xbox to use it as a BR player. They want people to buy an Xbox 360 and use it to download. Not only do they pay money for the optical drive, they would also pay between $5-10 for the ability to play back movies on every console if they enabled that. Theres a reason why the Wii can't play DVDs even though it plays DVD discs.