No company does things to not make money, M$ is no different, unless they suddenly decided to be the best company in the world and be a non-profit organisation and gave all their spare money to end world dept but we know that's not going to happen any time soon. XBOX might be the first for online content but it wasn't the winner and not being the winner restricts the profitability of it as a whole. M$ are still dependent on a device that is dependent on something else (in this case gaming), to win in online content.

Blu-Ray is a step forward but not to late. You are thinking to much about the modern western world where internet and high speed internet connections with their unlimited downloads are becoming the normal. But they jsut aren't yet the normal. DVDs took off like a rocket and still pulls in billions, compared to that, digital distribution is slow, people have been able to download movies for a while but not as easily and it's not as accessable as just buying a DVD. Blu-Ray is the upgrade (think when cassettes moved to CDs for music), but in the case of CDs to downloads, they are both still around. There are many that don't have that high speed internet yet or aren't rid of those pesky download limits. Infact CDs while it might not seem it in album sales still beat downloads hands down (well at least legally). People who need blu-ray are those who live in areas without modern western conveniences. Of course, you pay for internet and the download and the device to play it on, when also in Blu-ray you jsut pay for the blu-ray and the device.

This is another advantage for film companies and other in general, piracy must be stopped and music pircay is far to wide spread to restrict at the moment. but Blu-Ray is secure, digital distrubution is not. Compaines as a whole to maximise profit will choose the secure one.

If it is about XboxLive and PSN then Sony have already won, not because they have the better service but because they have Blu-Ray. Digital distribution is not yet a sound and viable choice but discs are and have been for years. there are still many people also that don't want to have to buy a games machine to have to watch a movie.

DVD's to Blu-Rays is nothing like the cassette to CD upgrade.  VHS to DVD is a better comparison - the upgrade offered scene selection (similar to track selection), extra features, space, removed the hassle of dealing with VHS tapes, and of course higher quality media.  The only new thing Blu-Rays offer is higher quality video/audio, and maybe more room for more features.

I doubt there are really that many people without modern western conveniences that are sporting HDTV's and are craving for Blu-Ray.  People are doing just fine with DVDs, and there are many out there who cannot (or don't care to) tell the difference.  Assuming disc distribution is still the way to go is one thing, but that does not equate to Blu-Rays outdoing digital distribution.  Don't forget that DVDs aren't going anywhere.

I disagree with that. Digital distribution is much more secure than discs.

you...you are joking, right?

Not at all.

Didn't it take something like 6 months to crack blu ray's encryption?

That might be the better comparison, but then on cassettes to CDs the only real difference was that you can skip and select which track you want and the quality...so in the end either analogy is fine i'm sure.

How about rich people who live not in the west and don't have access to those modern western conveniences? Okay so a limited few but even the modern consoles and Blu-Ray are selling in lets say, eastern Europe where those modern western conveniences are not a viable option but Blu-ray is. People there can afford the PS3 and are buying it but that's a physical thing that's not produced in that country, you just import it like the Blu-Ray discs and HD TVs, a cable internet with no download limits and high speed connection is not a possibility yet.

It's true that DVDs are going no where, which is another obsticle for M$ to over come, if they really do want digital distribution to succeed over a phsyical disc, there's no way in hell they are going to beat a $20 DVD player and DVDs in a sale.

oh no i'm not disputing whther blu-ray can be cracked or not. but digital distribution is nowhere near secure. at this very moment, i can get ANY music track, movie, tv show and video game i want through torrent sites, as long as somebody uploads it, and i don't have to pay a penny for them.

That's not digital distribution. That's pirating. Made easy by CDs and DVDs, i.e. discs.

Funnily enough, none of the stuff you download contains any DRM. The stuff to make digital distribution secure. And no, that's not even 100% secure, but it's still early days and it's changing all the time.

The thing with digital distribution is that it's down to the hardware to make it secure. An example would be rented films off of Live. You can't get those films off the drive, the 360 won't let you. I'm not 100% sure but I'm pretty sure that those films are secure. I've not done a great deal of research into it and I'm willing to be proved wrong.

But I'll stand by digital distribution being more secure than discs. The fact that we'll be forced in that direction proves that.

how can you not call that digital distribution? there are files(digital) being accessed by a multitude of people(distribution). If you want to get down to semantics, all physical items have to exist before the digital version so I don't really understand your point.

As for security I think it's a moot point since if a person doesn't want to pay for the media then they won't, they can just get it another way.

I don't want to get into semantics, it looks like you do.

It's not digital distribution in the sense that we are talking here. When companies talk about digital distribution of films/music they do not mean they're gonna rip their music/movies and offer them for free on torrents. Why not say digital distribution is not secure because I can copy a file from folder A to folder B. That's being digitally distributed, but it's not the digital distribution we are talking about.

And I don't see how security can be a moot point when the industry has been paranoid about it for years. It's practically the most important point for these companies since the advent of mp3s.