I'm pretty convineced that they may be going mostly download and flash based distribution next-gen.  Blu-ray I guess is a possibility but I'm not sure they'll do it.

Especially considering how big of a supporter of direct download MS is, if it was up to them they would get rid of hard copies as early as possible.

Toshiba has zero rights to Blu-ray drives,  they are the ones who created HD-DVD.   The majority of the patents are held by Panasonic, Sony and Pioneer

Just wanted to add to that OP list for PS2, God of War 1&2 have both used DVD9.  Not sure actually how big the games are tho.

As for MS, I cant see them creating a new format for next gen.  Usually MS just plays it safe so im going to guess that they'll go with Blu-ray.  If MS wants the next Xbox is to also be a Blu-ray player then they'll most likely just use BD for their games.

MS talked about how digital distribution is the future but after the release of the PSP Go they went back on their words and sort of calm down on that topic lol.  

I always get Panasonic and Toshiba confused 

Just a bunch of sparse and loosely related or unrelated thoughts:

1) By the time MS would possibly start using it, it wouldn't be decisive anymore for BD success as a format, so MS shouldn't have any problem about helping a format it didn't particularly like.

2) MS preferred HD-DVD and disliked BD also because the vast majority of HD-DVD players used MS licensed firmware for interactive contents, so making it earn license fees, while BD uses a Java derivative, and MS hates Java, but this shouldn't be a problem for games, as they don't use the very limited processing power present in players for interactive contents, games are heavyweight and largely more interactive programs that run on the main CPU, so they won't push Java popularity unless MS decide to program them in that language, not very likely.

3) As many of you wrote, Sony, despite being one of the biggest BDA members, is one of the many big ones, so it gets a small % share of royalties, and, if it's correct that Sony gets more on discs and Panasonic on drives, MS could always support BD playing compatibility, to offer a more complete multimedia machine, but go the Nintendo way using proprietary formatting for game discs, this way it should pay full royalties only on the drives, but it could just license from the single owners a small bunch of patents for the discs.

4) Curious thing: while obviously Sony gets the full profits from its own games and it gets also exclusive royalties on 3rd party games, like any other console architecture and brand owner, for what regards the BD royalties it earns only from 3rd party games, while on 1st party ones it just saves on them compared to game devs not member of BDA. The reason is simple maths: on 1st party games Sony pays the consortium BD royalties and it's given a small share of them back, while on 3rd party ones it doesn't pay anything and it receives its share of the royalties. The same applies to BD movies.

5) Like some pointed out, a new format could eventually become BD successor, but it should get through a similar path as BD is currently doing to achieve its goal, time needed can be different, but no format ever became mainstream just after release, DVD and CD took a lot of time, and while BD media adoption hasn't surpassed DVD market share yet, BD drives actually took less time than CD and DVD ones to become affordable. The next format could reach HW affordability even faster, but as BD already offers enough space to contain a long HD movie with extras in a single disc, and DD competition is becoming stronger, not to mention most producers wish to gather profits from it for a long enough time before jumping to the successor, next format could have even less and shorter problems on the HW front, but struggle more than BD on the format adoption one. The mix of pros and cons for next format is still very undefined and unpredictable and no physical format ever experienced the same mix as the others.

6) Multistandard drives able to read BD too, but using HD-DVD or a derivative for games could be a good solution for MS, and by 2013 its overprice compared to a plain BD drive should be minimal (although the discs, produced in a smaller scale than BD, would be a little more expensive, but not having to pay BD royalties on them and owning some of their patents instead should make up for that).

First of all... Framepacking 720p only needs HDMI 1.2 bandwith wise. Total resolution of 720p framepacking is 1280x1440 which is well within the HDMI 1.2 spec. What HDMI 1.2 "can't" do is the extra handshake which is needed for 3D TVs to understand which 3D format the console is sending. This is why on xbox version of Black ops or NBA2K11, the user needs to manually choose the 3D format and it isn't automatic like the PS3. If MS do implement framepacking 3D on 360, they must have pulled some software trick out of their hat...

Now to the main point...

When it comes to 360 and PS3 3D implementation so far, side by side or framepacking have very little visible difference. Both methods take 2 images which are usually 1/2 of 720p and upscale them to 720p per eye. The upscaling is very noticable to someone who plays games on the PC in true 720p and especially full 1080p @ 60 hz(something HDMI 1.4 cand to cause of lack of bandwith...only dual link DVI)

With that said. there is absolutely no reason why anyone would want "framepacking" or HDMI 1.4 support on the 360. Framepacking is slightly inferior to side to side/over under...and really badly inferior to checkerboard 3D when it comes ot gaming.

The 2 major issues with framepacking is image scaling and locking out non HDMI 1.4 displays. I can play 360 games using a PC on my 3D monitor and projector...can't do the same with PS3 without a 400 dollar "official" adapter.

Here is a thread on nvidia boards which people can read over to see why framepacking is not recommended. People who bought Samsung 3D TVs have the checkerboard 3D mode available(other TVs dont for some reason) and all pretty much agree that it beats 720p framepacking.

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=200925

And finally...DVD's can't do HDMI 1.4 framepacking when it comes to holywood movies. They lack the HDCP protection features which bluray has. However technically they can easly all other forms of 3D and may be able to do framepacking for gaming, since consoles have their own security measures. Space does become an issue with a DVD though...

lol, thanks...I try to keep my 3D information current but its not easy. Every week there is a new standard or method being used...

The PS4 should have BDXL, 128gb for one disc is absolutely fine.

Movies should be kept on the original 50gb Blu-Ray format so no new Blu-Ray players are needed to watch movies.

The only things that should take advantage of BDXL are the games.

Everybody wins =)

Microsoft should drop the childish games and go with Blu-Ray, Blu-Ray is only just taking off and it will remain the most popular high-def format, if they make a new format then it will just be unfair on the consumers and the high-def format war would become overcomplicated. But then again, that will damage Microsoft's huge ego and they wouldn't be able to gloat about how useless Blu-Ray is anymore.

I say blu ray or hd dvd.

The Next Microsoft console will have a Blu-ray drive in it,  I dont see how they will get away from it if they want to stay relevant in the living room.  Blu-ray is slowly becoming the movie standard,  and with the technology they have been advancing in blu-ray, most notably Pioneers 400GB Blu-ray disc, Blu-ray will be around for awhile