As several have alluded to, Blu Ray and digital downloads both have great futures. Blu Ray will always have the movie theatre experience and collectibility. So sales may slow when digital downloads pick up but they won't die. Digital downloads will likely replace rental stores and DVDs in the market because of their ease of use and cheapness. Yes, there will be some overlap but most consumers don't want to have hard drives of movies lying around and most consumers are willing to pay more for the quality of Blu Ray.

Haha well how do you define mainstream? According to Nielsen BluRay has a marketshare of 5-7% in the US, just considering the top20 DVDs vs Top20 Blus. Would they consider all the DVDs and all the Blus it would be like 2-3% marketshare. And the US is the biggest HD market worldwide, followed by japan and Europe with a great distance.

So there might be a worldwide marketshare of 3%. That is not mainstream, this is a niche in my eyes. I don't think it will change that fast.

The Blu will never be such a great cash cow like the DVD was. There are just too many alternatives on the market. As soon as the Blu will conquer some marketshare, VoD will be on its way. like you said, in 3-4 years. Apple TV is released, Xbox Live is a great supporter of VoD, even Sony with the PSN is offering VoD right now. OF course, there is netflix, there is amazon.com and lots more.

The one won't eleminate the other. It will be like it is in the music industry right now. iTunes is the greatest music-retailer in the market. This will happen for movies,too.

 ==> sorry man but 

 - you take the PRESENT numbers to counter my claim occuring in 2 YEARS ???

that makes no sense.

Also how much market share for the digital distribution right now ???
0.01% at best ...

- WHERE, WHERE did I say BR will allow Sony to make a lot of money ???

I never said that.

I basically just said : BR is more mainstream that V.O.D particularly since HD DVD death. Except massive sales for Xmas08.

http://www.engadgethd.com/2008/07/18/nielsen-videoscan-high-def-market-share-for-week-ending-july-13t/

TOO BAD, BR is already at 12% is the US to 20

It is not a lot,
sure
but DirtyP2002, ur datas are outdated ...

a average 3% market growth will make it at 27% for Xmas08 ... not so bad.

Mainstream, 80% for Xmas09 ... As I was guessing some posts ago. 

It is not a lot, sure
but DirtyP2002, ur datas are outdated ...

VoD and Digital movie downloads don't make me a happy man (yet).


The quality just isn't there. DVD's tend to look better than the HD downloadable movies. Add the local-storage problem (I have enough DVD's at home to fill several tens of TB of storage). And the DRM model is quite nasty, if my Xbox360/PS3 dies and gets replaced I'll either have to re-download all my purchases or jump through some 'prove you own this' hoops.

I'll wait this one out. Lets see how it does in 10 years time ;)

@ greenmedic88 - Lotus 123 was the first office suite. It was much better than the early versions of office.

So because Sony won the disc format war they can't have digital distribution as well? I think that Sony is the only game company that currently offers full games via download (not sure). They have or will release Warhawk, GT5P, Socom, and Siren via digital distribution. Everyone clearly understands that digital distribution is the future, I think some of you are confused on the timing. It is 10 - 15 years away from widespread usage. Also, Steam/Valve was the pioneer with digital distribution not Microsoft. In fact, Valve asked MS to build Steam and MS replied it wasn't possible.

Edit: I will ridicule MS when they add Blu-ray to the 360 or the nextbox.  They tried to kill the Blu-ray format.  Sony has supported both formats.

SONY promoting digital downloads have very little if anything to do with Microsoft. It's about diversifying your offerings as a business. It's as simple as the saying "Don't put all you eggs in one backet." You know... this thread is almost not worth responding to (I did say "almost") because it paints a false picture to somehow think that just because SONY promotes digital downloads it automatically means that Microsoft was correct or that just because SONY promoted Blu-ay means that they cannot also promote digital downloads and Blu-ray was a wrong move. if any one company was involved that heavily influenced SONY's decision to promote digital downloads it was Apple. I remember reading an article where Ken Katuragi (BEFORE he left SONY) publicly criticized SONY for not taking advantage of the mp3 market sooner now that Apple has dominated the market with their iTunes namebrand. Making predictions on the vitality of an optical media format and digital downloads is one thing and very herd to accurately predict. But you will always have your collectors, a physical media for HD content is the most convenient mean of storage and transport, and the download of HD content from most high speed connections in homes do not outweigh the conventionality of a brick and mortar store with customer service.

Yeah, most of his threads have anti-sony undertones, at least.

Digital distribution does nothing to deter blu-ray at this time. Microsoft didn't come up with this idea, and they only say they prefer downloads to Blu-ray because their console doesn't support it for games and never will. Blu-ray versus HD-DVD was a format war. Digital distribution is not. No one owns that patent.

if they have the blureray in ps3 why the hill they want to put movies download service on psn ??!!

Multiple video formats have always existed, such as pay-per-view and home video formats. Webstreams have been added to the mix too. Giving consumers options is not saying that one is weaker than the other. Its just giving the consumer more options.

To act like this is a new thing too is very shortsighted.