Yeah, it will be a while but yeah...

I can't wait for the day when connections are so fast that we can just stream full featured games and not have to download them.

Alot of people are missing the point with the arcade.

Not everyone is rich and M$ know this. The arcade lets those that cant afford alot still experience the HD gaming. These people cant afford the net so it wont affect the image. People who have got internet will be able to afford 60gb or 120 gb.

I really want to see what M$ have install for Europe, they sound very confident, alot more confident and definitive than normal. I would love a Netflix kinda deal for Europe. 10,000 films from day one without any extra subscription for those with Gold is sweet. Live is just a monster.

yeah except... what is going on now was planned 4 years ago at least..... wht MS is talking about is for the future... the present is already to late and doesn't matter a bit..... `

and digital distribution is more than the present..... I rent more movies on XBL than I did ever before..... I DL my music more and more legaly because now you can at a reasonable price..... and watch TV shows in HD for free through the networks website..... I'm seriously thinking about stoping my cable TV connection and even my netflix subscription (well not anymore if in fall it is interesting)

and finally exactluy my question on a other post... is the Wii approach a formula that can be recreated in the future, and once again MS right now is not looking at the present but at the future like Sony and nintendo are doing on their side....

now about connection speed... the techs are there some of them are even already instaled.... it's just a problem of legislation in most cases... the connection speed and the storage method is not an issue it's a god damn excuse..... 5 terrabite of HDD is not that expensive now a days..... remember how much was the price of 1 GB 10 years ago ????

the problem is not if it is possible, it's just are they ready to invest in that direction..... nothing more.... it's a question of big money..... who will do the first step and when that's it.....

Other then my giant f*&cked up statement about PSN, my points still stand.

MS isn't referring to NOW but the future, and I find it funny how a lot of people here seem ...scared??... that digital distribution might be the future and that you're $400-$500 Blu ray machine that plays game might be obsolete before it even becomes maintstream.

No worries though, I probably feel the same if I had been suckered into Sony's promises..

I have one thing to throw out there...
If games get larger and larger in size, then getting a faster internet speed would have to outpace the size of games' growing...
If anyone gets that :/ not sure if I worded it correctly...

Ok, here's what I predict will happen within the next 10 years:

1) Internet coverage will only increase, and increase dramatically.

2) Internet speeds will increase a lot, both for consumers and for the backbones. New cables will be laid between continents and within the next 10 years, the bandwidth will increase at least a hundredfold. In Japan, apparently, gigabit internet connections have been available for a few years already.

3) All content delivery will shift to digital domain. For games, this means very radical changes in the business as a whole. I've talked about some of this before, but the main points are:

3a) Retail will no longer get as much profits from game sales, so HW and accessories will have to make up for the loss of profits, meaning higher margins and more expensive hardware.

3b) Content delively margin structure changes with the removal of distribution/retail from the delivery chain, so the price of content should come down quite a bit.

3c) Episodic delivery of content will become more and more mainstream, both to manage risk within big projects, and to get to profits quicker. This also means that even if the average size of games continues to increase, the episode sizes will still be easily manageable.

3d) The roles of developers/publishers will change, and more and more devs will bypass publishers as they can access the customers directly via the digital distribution channels.

don't forget about space and efficiency.  I have 3 bookshelves in my living room just for dvd's.  although i do love my movies i'd prefer to get rid of them in favor of electronic copies just like i did with my music.  and i love the search features for finding my music, beats the hell out of searching the shelf for ten minutes to find that one CD you want to listen to.  I want those convieniences for my movies too. xD

Downloading games will never take over for physical media, most places have limits on how much you can download and how fast you can have your internet. The cable companies run a monopoly on Internet speeds and they will not allow unlimited bandwidth either.  Smaller companies are either bought up, or run out of busness from cable companies bringing lawsuits and causing other shit.

 Looks to me like right now if you want to download games PS3 is a better purchase than the 360 :P

Because that microsoft guy sure isn't setting a date for it to happen and for all we know it's going to come by the time the 720 or the 1080 Xbox comes out......

and people whine about sony PR.

i don't imagine people waiting a month to download a 25gb HD movie.

unless 100mbps gets pushed into the every single house in the world its not gonna happen.

i don't expect that until the next 5-10 years by the time m$ would be in their next console