Go for flash cards / cartridges. It's about time they come back.

I'd like a choice. I will never but a disk version of the game if I have a choice to download it at the same price... I'm sure there are people who would do the opposite, so why not have the best of both worlds?

These are my thoughts, exactly.  I look forward to the days of spinning discs being long gone.

Dear god no. Downloading GTA4 and its exp packs is a nightmare on steam. 32GB. You have to wait a freaking day. And that's at 1.2MB/s. I'd feel sorry for people who get less. And hard drives are no where near the ability to hold stuff. We'd end up going back to the same issue. Except you fill your shelf with hard drives. And please don't say You don;t have to have all your games installed. Good luck wasting 32gb every time to dl GTA4 + packs.

If he's talking about download only, then no. We're a long way from that being feasible for everyone. Games sales would plummet.

If he's talking about solid-state formats, then yeah, the technology is definitely there. The media itself would be more expensive, so I don't know if publishers would like that, and damn if I want game prices to go up again, but it's a better hardware solution.

It would not surprise me at all to see Microsoft go that route. Sony, however, will probably stick with Blu-Ray.

Cliff should start only making XBLA games then.

Whichever console doesn't have a disc drive is the console I won't be buying.

I only have 50gb monthly data, with some ps3 games already being 20gb this would be an issue for me.
I like to own my games and have them on disc in a nice case
What if my console malfunctions, I would rather not have to re-download hundreds of GB of data.
Harddrive space will be an issue
With no Disc drive I won't be able to play any of my DVD's or Blu-rays and eliminates the possibility of backwards compatibility.

In addition to the data speed problems people have mentioned here I'd also like to point out the size of those games: A lot of games will be 50GB in size next gen so even if the consoles come with a 500GB hard drive you could only store 10 games on it. You'd have to get a 1TB HDD at least and those are still quite expensive in relation to the overall price of a console.

I doubt physical copies of big games will disappear - not next generation and not next-next gen either. Our data speeds will increase but so will the size of big games. Coexistence of physical media and digital downloads is the way to go.

I hate this guy but I think it will happen eventually after a few years into next-gen. Most peoples internet are not fast enough to download games at current game sizes. Next gen will be even worse.

At first I thought this was going to talk about the return of cartridge-based systems.

Just because going digital-only would be absurd. The first console maker that goes digital only could just as well close up shop. It's over. No retailer would only sell consoles and no games. Would be the stupidest decision ever. Game sales would suffer immensely; there would be no impulse-buys, it would take too much time to download, too much space to store.

Personally, I want to able to play my games whenever the hell I want to. That's why I don't have any Steam-games, because it requires you to log in, be connected and all kinds of unnecessary bullshit. You must comply with whatever policy these companies think of, otherwise you wouldn't be able to play, you're pretty much enslaving yourself. What happens if such a service would ever stop?
Sure, the last thing wouldn't a big issue in consoles, but what until when in the future would I be able to re-download that which I own? What if in 20 years I decide to replay some game, only to find I cannot download it anymore and as luck would have it, my harddrive is broken. I can play my SNES for all eternity if need be.

No, I'd like to be my own boss on the stuff I bought. I would never, ever buy a digital only system. That includes any manufacturer. Should this ever catch on (which thankfully, I don't believe), I'll just stick to retro.