Eh.... That's great (for the future) but I wouldn't want to DL a huge ass game or even a FULL HD movie. Takes a frickin pain in the ass to DL one HD movie.

I think you and I are the only two.  Unless they are able to have everyones internet speeds so fast that you can stream the game to your console like someone mentioned earlier in this thread I don't think I would like the idea of all my stuff sitting on a hard drive that could just go to crap for no reason at all (it happened to my lap top a month ago, no big loss since everything was backed up on my desk top and cds) but the fact is still there that a hard drive is more likely to fail sooner than a disk is.

The reason that there is so little piracy on the PS3 is because it uses BluRay discs.  Blank BluRay discs are expensive, and so are the drives to burn the discs.  It just doesn't make economic sense to pirate PS3 games right now.  It doesn't have anything to do with the size of the media.

Yes very true, an alphabatized list on your console is a lot more conveniant and space efficient than a bookshelf with game boxes on it.  Not to mention that all you would have to do is sit on the couch and pick up your controller to play any of your games.  You just start up the console and pick the game from the menu, no ejecting one disc and putting in another and then putting the boxes back up on the shelf every time you want to play a different game.

Hard drive space really isn't an issue either if they are designing a console for DD. Right now you can get a Seagate 1TB drive on newegg for $180 and that has enough space to hold twenty completely full BR discs.   By the time the connection speeds get to the where they need to be for the average consumer the drives will have grown considerably, we may have even switched to solid state drives by then.

Speaking of solid state drives I also want to point out that games will load faster from a drive, particularly if we are using solid state.  Current SSDs are already around 250 times faster than current HDs and HDs are faster than disc drives. 

I really don't see any drawback to DD system other than that people will have to get used to not owning a physical disc.  While at the same time the advantages are enormous; reduced living room clutter, no need to swap discs to play games, much faster game load times,  games cannot be stolen, cannot be lost, cannot be broken, and it will help put more money directly into the pocket of the developers by reducing their costs immensely.  The effect of which would be that expensive HD games are a lot more sustainable because developers don't need to sell as many copies to break even.

Remember that not only does this increase the amount from each game that goes to the developers it also removes the need for manufacturing which means more of the money they recieve will be profit.  More profitable games means developers who can afford to try new things, one of the reasons we have sequels coming out of ears right now (SC4, GTA4, MGS4, RE5, etc..) is because massive HD games are an extremely risky proposition.

the $180 hard drive is too expensive and too small.  although within two generations i expect tthe dd to be all but useless.  time solves so many problems with technology.

ssd is too expensive to think about right now, but it hold lots of potential.

Everything is pirated already. CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray discs, games. It doesn't matter if it's a physical format or not.

And for those that think PS3 games aren't pirated, they all are.

The difference is, the PS3 itself hasn't been compromised yet so pirated games can't be played.

Do you guys even realize how much "bandwidth" a semi-trailer full of BDs, travelling 60 mph down the highway has? A heck of a lot. Bandwidth is indeed an issue, and will be for a loooong time coming. I can take a single CD to work and have "transmitted" 600 MB 10 miles, in just 20 mins. 30 MB/min == 500 KB/sec. That's more than the limit of the best available downstream household DSL connection (the limit is usually about 3 Gb/sec, or about 360 MB/sec after you factor in IP overhead), even in high-tech areas (which represent a minority of consumers, not a majority), and that's over an uncontested route (meaning there's not too many other folks trying to download CDs).

Now fill my pickup truck with CDs (probably several thousand).

Now fill the truck with single-layer BDs (~40 CDs each). Or fill 40 pickup trucks with CDs -- how many CDs do you suppose that is?

Now how about I drive a semi-trailer truck, instead of a pickup.

Digital distribution more efficient than physical? Lol. Physical production and distribution is much more efficient, in terms fo cost, for large amounts of data like AAA-games and movies. Internet trunk bandwidth isn't increasing at some magical rate (its the "leaves" that have been growing dramatically in size in the past few years) -- it will *never* be large enough to support serious digital distribution, unless all the distribution download centers are localized... and, go figure, that costs money... a LOT of money. Digital distribution, en masse, is not only impossible from a centralized location, its financially impractical with a distributed system.

The $4/month Microsoft charges for Live probably barely covers their expenses. If they had to support full digital distribution of full-size games... it would cost a fortune, and its not going to get cheaper. This begs the question, who would pay more money to download something over a long period, even on a fast internet connection, when they can drive to town and purchase physical media for cheaper? Does MS have some trick up its sleeve that will convince their consumers to spend more money on an item that is less tangible, while, at the same time, convince their shareholders that less profit per unit sold is a good idea?

Small games, on the other hand, are a completely different story. Small is perfect for digital distribution. If the games industry starts making little < 1 GB games exclusively, digital distribution *might* be feasible, although it would still cost a bunch more than it does now.

Digital distribution of small, or few, titles works great as is. It cannot grow to overshadow physical media at this time, or any time in the foreseeable future.

...that being said, when the world runs out of oil, and runs out of clever ideas of how to generate power for transportation or factories, and runs out of raw materials (like... oil) to build discs from... digital distribution will be where its at... except of course that no one will be playing video games. You'll be farming instead.

good luck downloading 200gb

its about f*****g time that MS gave some Live stuff for us here in europe