kber he's got a good point. PSP software is lackluster, but besides that your whole analogy with the 23% is severely flawed because it doesn't include illegal downloads. The increase in digital downloads does not come close to making up for the decrease in CD sales.

I agree with DOATS1, there are lots of reasons for the survival of optical media, whatever it is.
Coexistence of optical media and fast download, where available, is the short and medium term future most likely.
OTOH, when gigabit internet will be widespread it will be possible to implemente P2P protocols for "flash piracy", where it will be possible to complete downloads without the majors being able to track transfers in time

Seriously I don't get what you are trying to say... I meant that fact downloadable stuff is doing fine doesn't mean it's the beginning of the end of CD business. Sony has some marketshare of handhelds too but it means nothing for Nintendo... I have no idea why it's unclear for you.

Umm, except CD sales have been declining for 7 straight years.  This is obviously not the case with the DS.  So your analogy is a bad one.

Someone only has to look at at music CD's and mp3 downloads to see what the future will hold for disc movies.

 Most especially as 2009 roles along and the USA is all digital all the time (in radio and tv) and as cable companies begin providing digital only service, and then as they provide more and more DVR service with bigger and bigger hard drives, it will become possible for people to simply pick and choose what movie they want to watch, in HD when they want to watch it.

On topic, I also need a tangible item for my money - and this is coming from someone who then rips all CD and DVD data to a media server (which happens to be a PS3 at the moment).

@ Onimusha, where did Sony say the PS4 would be download only? If that is the case, I most likely will not be getting one. Of coarse, the next generation is WAY too far off to tell anything of that sort.

You are saying that now, but in 10 years you wont be given a choice, more and more of the market for "content" is going to be downloadable, more and more of our house hold things are going to be "connected" , wether it's movies, games, computer app's , downloadable is the future. The only barrier to this has been broadband, how fast it can be accessed. We live in a microwave society and once the issue of speed has been largely eliminated speed and ease of access will be #1 , downloading it will give you the right to always download it, its what the future will be and it's exactly what all content creators want, because it means less sharing media and more people buying media.

How can people argue against downloads with the success of mp3's. Once it is easily portable you may be able to put a movie on a thumb drive and take it to your friends house etc. Obviously is not going to happen overnight but it should. In terms of collectors I think that population is actually going down though I ma only looking at my cousin as an example. Punk used to have tons and tons of dvd's but he has traded them almost all of them and basically has a 500 gig drive where he puts all his stuff now. After a while all that physical media takes space and once there is a new format what happen to your old stuff etc. Digital media is the future.

I am not arguing against downloadable content, but I would dislike having NO other option for the simple reasons of quality and tangibility. I do not think that I am the only one who feels this way.

Let's face it, mp3 (still the dominant format) is lossy - quality is degraded, but this compression is necessary for propagation around the internet. Although throughput will increase (that is a given) won't video files still have to be compressed in order to be quickly transferred? Of coarse they will. Any such compression means decrease in quality.

Even at 500k a second, you are looking at days to download 30 to 50 gigs of content. Compression is necessary in this case, and there will always be a market for the higher quality - though less convenient and more expensive - option afforded by physical media.

I won't even get into the aspect of storage because any decent downloadable system will allow redownload of a purchased item - though that isn't the most time convenient.

For the record, I also loath Steam (though it is getting more and more stable). I do not like the precident it sets, and I hope (again) that the PS4 (or Wii Too or X720 or whatever) does not go that route.

Feel free to site my views as old fashoned.

Downloadable content will NEVER replace a physical storage medium. I'm putting my vote in for a mixture of downloadable content and some sort of permanent physical storage medium. Though I could easily see 8-20GB flash drives made to be read only and becoming a norm for media storage.
Instead of having a disc that's bigger than your hand and needs to be kept in a protective case to keep from getting scratched, you have the flash drives which only take up the space of your finger. Plus instead of needing to have a mechanical movement to process the information on the disc (thus using up more energy and being more likely to wear out) You just plug it in and it reads the info.
This is all a moot point is the failure rate of a flash drive is too high though. The whole point in the optical discs is that the information is physically etched into the plastic. As long as you don't physically damage the disc, your information could be stored safely for years beyond the point in which your file formats will become obsolete.

 Okay, first off, I do listen to MP3 files and stuff, but typically, I also have the actual CDs in an archive that I can reffer back to in case something happens to the hardrive that I'm storing those MP3 files on. Hardrives have become more reliable so it's not AS big of an issue, but until they become more reliable than CDs and just as easily switched between multiple computers, and just as cost effective in doing this, then downloadable content will never replace CDs.