What makingmusic said.  Nintendo usually always does its own thing.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  But MS, on the otherhand, is trying to compete with Sony, mostly.  They both are trying to have the most feature filled all-in-one HD "media hub".  Next gen will be no different.  And if MS sticks with DVD, they will be seen by most to not be staying with the times.  And if they try to go with download only, not only will they lose all the people who prefer physical media, but also those who have a limited or no internet connection. 

Sony may have fell behind this gen, but they have a lot of things in line for almost guaranteed success next gen.  MS, on the other hand, have a lot of tough choices to make for next gen.

So the Xbox 720 will be completely Digital and/or still on DVD and/or MS will create a new format???

I'd assume it'll at least have a disc drive, for BC purposes.

I could potentially see them prioritizing DD for all 720-specific releases, but even then, a theoretical 720 would arrive well before DD is ready to fully take over (especially for games, given the sizes they'll be then), and they'd be losing sales by not supporting traditional retail releases as well.

blu ray is never going to be the standard; disc-less media is where everything is going, and I know that not a single next gen system will use blu ray for a format.

I am no Blu-Ray or PS3 Fanboy but I was just going on some articles I read about Kojima-San maxing a S/L BD-ROM and having to use a D/L and sill having to cut content for space constants.  

Uhmmm last time I checked Xbox couldn't use Bluray.. Also people that like to have more than 7 GB in their games and don't have to constantly switch discs and get incomplete games with content that was cut need blu-rays as well.

~15GB-30GB, 30MB/S transfer is probably what they will use. They will use the cheapest format in order to achieve this, especially with the increased cost of physical controllers etc. Blu Ray playback for the Arcade model is not certain at all. I would not be surprised at all if the next console of theirs used HD-DVD on the cheap.

Sorry.  Didn't meant to imply that was the case.  It was a couple of fanboys that initially spread the rumor, and it's been making the rounds ever since.  A lot of people, most of which aren't fanboys by any means, now believe the rumor to be fact simply because of what a few people were saying when Kojima first made the conmment.

Given they'd have to completely retool factories for the production of HD DVDs, and would initially be without the benefits of economy of scale, it wouldn't be all that "cheap", at least not at first.

Using an uncommon disc format isn't a very good idea, which is why even when going "proprietary", companies are generally just using standard tech with slight modifications, usually on the software side.   Like the altered DVDs Nintendo uses for the Wii.  They can be manufactured at a typical DVD plant with little issue.

And there's still the issue of having an all-in-one media device that can't play Blu-ray movies, which would be an anomoly in 2012-2014.  Might as well kill two birds with one stone by including a Blu-ray drive and using it for games.  Unless Microsoft are really that petty that they'll go with HD DVD just to spite the Blu-ray consortium.  They're a corporation, not a teenage girl!

Given they'd have to completely retool factories for the production of HD DVDs, and would initially be without the benefits of economy of scale, it wouldn't be all that "cheap", at least not at first.

Using an uncommon disc format isn't a very good idea, which is why even when going "proprietary", companies are generally just using standard tech with slight modifications, usually on the software side.   Like the altered DVDs Nintendo uses for the Wii.  They can be manufactured at a typical DVD plant with little issue.

And there's still the issue of having an all-in-one media device that can't play Blu-ray movies, which would be an anomoly in 2012-2014.  Might as well kill two birds with one stone by including a Blu-ray drive and using it for games.  Unless Microsoft are really that petty that they'll go with HD DVD just to spite the Blu-ray consortium.  They're a corporation, not a teenage girl!