Going dd road is way-of-no-no, if they want big userbase.

Next gen will be discbased (Blu-ray most likely).
But Nintendo might go their own way and put their games on Sd-cards (or some other card-based format)

If you look SdHc/Cf-cards price evolution for last 12 months (for 16 gigs cards), SdHc-cards have fallen in 6 months to the 1/3 they were in price in february and Cf-cards cost less than half now what they were in february.

I can only imagine much much less they are gonna cost in 2-4 years when Nintendo/MS/Sony releases their next console.

I already buy and play more xbox live games than real ones. They will just expand on that model and everything should be digital soon. You should be able to buy the hard copy of the game but I see the PS3 route taken on this one...installs.

@ all Look guys if it does become that big a factor in ppl purchasing decisions on the nxt iteration, they'll just make a completely online SKU and a BR SKU....easy breezy

Forcing digital downloads makes no sense to me. Unless it will dramatically reduce the price of games, a hybrid gaming system makes much more sense to me.

I wouldn't mind downloading some games, and that is already happening now with warhawk and Socom, etc, but I want the option of buying a game in store. Its a lot more simple to people who dont want to start downloading.

Sold old folks don't wanna touch downloads no matter how easy it gets. It doesn't make sense to force them with Blu-Ray being to manufacture by that point. It also provides more jobs on top of that.

Games on SD would be good too. I just hope they don't make the games too small trying to show off, unless they are going to allow you to hold like 50 games in one console at once (kinda like a multi-CD changer.)

Like has been exhaustively stated already, Microsoft will never make a system without a way for physical games to be inserted, most likely some kind of optical media. However, I could see them allowing developers to put all of their games on Xbox Live AND Blu-Ray (if that's their format).

They'd definitely need to make XBL free, if that were the case, though.

Do you have a link to when they said this?

I would agree it cant be completely done w/o some sort of media drive. Truth is however that people will want some sort of way to buy things more quickly (rather then to go to the store and to get it). Internet will get better in the future (fiber optics) and digital distribution can easily be distributed without outages and overloads. Might be a 50/50 split depending on prices but truth is we want things done quickly (iPhone.)

really doubt any digital distribution.

how big are the hard drives going to be?

how to download from the stix?

how to ensure a network capable of delivering that amount of data.

requires massive infrastructure changes, business plan, and technology that is not yet available.

"I already buy and play more xbox live games than real ones. They will just expand on that model and everything should be digital soon. You should be able to buy the hard copy of the game but I see the PS3 route taken on this one...installs."

lol the size difference of the games on live compared to hard copies are ridiculous. Make the system live games, and you'll have less than the Wii has. As for your install comment, i'm just going to chalk that up to you trying to prove your point. the 360 would be doing installs for its games as well if the consoles thad a standard hard drive. Installs improves performance.

I don't think anything you've contirbuted makes a lick of sense. and niether does digital distribution for anything more than a rented movie.