When I have crazy thoughts, I try to keep them to my self.

That would mean games need to be dumbed down so they are not dozens of gigabytes.
Or they could release games in chapters but that would only work for single-player games.(some)

Technically it is possible to be digital-only(obviously since we can download full games this gen) but it just isn't a wise move to cut out the casual market. Digital-only means say goodbye to holiday boosts(for games) and say goodbye to the used games market and rental.

Digital-only means WE as the consumer are screwed. It's nice to have it as an option. That's it.

This.  So much this.  If Microsoft and Sony went with this model, they could say goodbye to all but the most token of support from retail chains.  Yeah, I guess you could still sell download codes for games, but really, the consoles would tank.

Not to mention, if I have a 75GB download cap in my home, and the average game is 30GB or so, I could buy two games is I did almost nothing else with my Internet all month.  These companies aren't that stupid.

I would pay money for just the multiplayer part as download for games like Gears of War, CoD, Battlefield, Fifa.. skipping the singleplayer part.. they shouldn't be too big as a download...

The fact of the matter is that the only way to guarantee full access to all potential gamers is through a physical medium.

Digital distribution is great and it offers great benefits like not having to go to the store to purchase a game but many people out there have slow internet connections and downloading games which are already large and will be getting bigger is an issue.

For this reason until everyone has fast and reliable internet, an online only console is not ideal as many customers will be left out.

Quoting so everyone can read what the OP says.

It won't happen anytime soon. Just look at what happens with Steam when they are doing its sales or the problems that Blizzard had with the launch of Diablo 3. Their servers, from 2 companies focused on online content and prepared for that, couldn't take the amount of traffic and left many people without access.

Can you imagine what will happen if consoles go the digital-only route and games that sell millions of copies on day one like GTA, CoD or whatever-comes-next-gen launch? There's no infrastructure that can suport that.

This will happen when there are no longer consoles. This is coming from a software guy who just wants to make his lot easier but with no consideration for the fact that MS, Sony and Nintendo's business is to sell hardware as well as software. Stop selling your software in shops and you will no longer be able to sell your hardware.

Software manufacturers don't need retail cooperation, hardware manufacturers do.

I'm pretty sure that either one of them or both of them have confirmed that they wont be going disc-less for the next console generation.

But maybe if the digital sales really take off they will offer version's without Disc tray and a large hard drive.

Nintendo said that download sales of Mario were about 5%. The game sold 431K retail copies on launch week in Japan. That 5% equals to 21.5k more copies.

There's a massive difference between serving 21.5k download petitions and 452.5k.

Edit: Let's not forget that Nintendo said that their servers went down, with only those 21.5k copies.

And now think of GTA or CoD. How many copies are sold on day 1? Can you imagine the huge amounts of data that not only the servers but also the whole infrastructure would have to deal with?

Nah. The PSVita does it right, and that would be the way to go next gen. Making every game available online at launch with less price.