To help people understand :

online/digital distribution/vod

will not be mainstream before 3-4 years.

BR will be mainstream at, let's say, Xmas 2009.

not enough people have the internet fro digital distibution to become mainstreamand if they did most people still prefere to be able to hold what they buy and see it. for example

i buy games online that come through the post on a disk or cartridge whatever

but i will not purchase the digital version of a game. i have to have the disk

i am sure this will apply to movies with many people

The near future will be Blu-ray and downloadable so no.

1) sony said that they wanted to do this for a long time.
2) they still have blu ray which will be more mainstream for now
3) sony knows that the future is digital distribution, but also understands that its not now

i have made none of them up and i dont feel like looking up quotes.

Sony stated that they would offer movie downloads from the beginning and is promoted by all inner Sony divisions that apply. They are ultimately winner because Sony Pictures has a ton of content that won't be on Blu Ray.

You mean Apple right? It was there idea, not MS's. When MS gets an original idea, I will let you know.

This is simply a case of adding consumer options, which is always preferable, both to the consumer as well as to the vendors.

Any way you can get your content to the end user is the key issue.

Is everyone going to start switching to DL on PSN now that it's available? No way. But the additional option for renting and buying constantly refreshed content is there.

The lack of ability to purchase HD downloads (which are limited to 1280x720) means that it's aimed squarely at the rental market, which is considerable.

Do highly compressed 1280x720 files match Blu-Ray quality? Don't kid yourself.

For the non-renters (primarily videophiles), they're still going to opt for higher res, lower compression 1920x1080 Blu-Rays every time.

Even when wide area increased bandwidth network standards are increased, DL files will still always be compressed higher resulting in lower image and sound quality. I don't see 25-50GB DLs on the horizon any time soon.

Sony doesn't directly benefit by the rental of B-RDs, as much as they would by "renting" video files direct to consumers who already own a PS3. They do still benefit by sales of discs to rental services, which is not insignificant.

Haaaaa.

I won't argue with that though. I've been saying the same thing since Windows 3.1.

MS has always been able to buy out and or co-opt (borrow/steal) anything they saw as being an integral part of their expansion as a company. It is those same practices that have earned them so many critics over the years.

Oh, MS did introduce MS Office. It was the first major office productivity soft suite on both DOS and the Mac, as well as what allowed them to reverse engineer Windows from the Mac dev kits used to create Office.

So, MS gave us Office.  Maybe not the first word processor/spreadsheet, but arguably the best of its time. lol

Most of you are saying that Sony is giving its users options with both bluray and digital downloads...which is fine.

however if microsoft for whatever bizarre reason decides to release a bluray addon drive for the 360, I don't want to hear any of you saying they are giving in or admitting they were wrong.

Also, bluray is not going to be mainstream for atleast another 2 years. By then at this rate even Wii will have a hard drive for digital distribution... :)

So I am not sure how long bluray will get to be the medium of choice...hence why I think its smart for sony to develop both aspects for their 10 year console.

No.... SONY wanted the Ps3 as an entertainment hub right??? Why not include downloadable movies... it's only helping the ps3 to become what it's supposed to be. I don't remember SONY saying they weren't gonna do it or they were against it.