Is the importance of Blu-Ray overstated?

[jalsonmi]

MikeB: Again, I'm looking outside the gaming world. Forget the XBox and it's absurdities. Much more than MS, the biggest proponents of digital media are Apple, Google, Viacom, GE, Disney, etc. It's much bigger than Sony vs. MS, or even Apple vs. MS.

Bdbdbdbd brings up a good point, which is cell phones. Digital media isn't exclusive to high end digital media--as I said before, a massive portion of the world's populace is just fine with lower quality and on small screens. Downloading to phones is a huge thing and does indeed effect the overall post-theater market (which inclused DVD, Blu-Ray and high end downloads/streams). There are literally billions of cell phones in the world. Even in the poorest places in the world, places where the rest of this argument has no meaning--where none of Blu-Ray, high end digital downloads, HD, PS3, whatever Mozambique a couple of years ago, which is one of the five poorest nations in the world, and most of the people there, if they lived in an area with electricity, had cell phones. It's penetration like that that shows the way digital media can and is revolutionizing the world. It's growing in a way that nothing like Blu-Ray can. Beyond that, in the city of Maputo in Mozambique, while no video game system is sold there and no one has better than a dinky little TV, there are internet cafes with broadband access.