Fair point. But if Australia does not want to be left in the middle ages, it will have to start accomodating digital distribution. 60GB is nothing. Half an iPod. At the end of the day - it is just a blessing for ISPs - more demand for bandwidth translate to more business opportunities for them. More money. Good.

You have 3-4 years to go. I am sure it will be fixed for you down under.

Yeah for a 'developed' nation we are hovering at the bottom of the list in terms of good ISP plans but it stems from such a huge geographical location and such a small population proportionately...and to top it off our newly elected PM made promises of high-speed Internet implementation i'm guessing fibre optic lines but then bailed out after winning the election...can't we sue them from backing out of promises??

Anyway Australia's problems aside and we are a developed nation where else is the Xbox marketed that would not have good Internet plans? There must be others prohibiting your suggested plan of digital distribution.

Wow...great analysis, as I was doubting this thread better I clicked it. Good Stuff!

Sue a politician for breaking promises? You might as well sue the winter for dropping rain.

Actually, the US is ranked well below Europe and Japan when it comes to internet connectivity. But this is being fixed rapidly with high bandwidth networks being deployed on a wide scale.

The next gen will start in 3-4 years and should last till about 2020. I think you should have your bandwidth problems fixed somewhere in between.

Haha great analogy...i hope so.

I think it's time to go back to cartridges, but include a DVD drive for backwards compatibility
Digital distribution for games will rule out the market in too many countries

i think m$ just needs to make 2 systems and thats it. 1 basic model and one high-end model. both systems have hdd, but the high-end model has the very large hdd like (300 hdd) and the basic have (120). that way even the low end model has enough space for a good while, also make the next xbox at least 4 times more powerfull and include the next version of bluray or a higher capacity hd-dvd drive for the games. drop xbl to $30 a year fee, and also give the basic model 2 months free of gold service. also make it so it can play all 360 games, give wifi for both models,also give both models a sd and a memory stick duo slots , and give both models 4 usb ports and locate them all on the front of the system, make the drive and disk slot loading (like the ps3 and wii). also allow the controllers to be recharged through the system, and include the cable with the system. and lastly use a liquid cooling system to keep the system at the perfect temp.

I foresee a cloud storage solution for large amounts of data on the next Xbox a la Windows Azure. You can include a HDD but use the MS servers as additional storage.

Wow you really want Microsoft to fail - giving them an advise on how to lose billions once more.

You are describing a system that is

1. Expensive. Very expensive. Ensuring that the it fails to be the dominating system in the market.

2. Evolutiinary. Just more of the same. No innovations. Ensuring that no-one will care about it.

I am generally good with cloud storage. The only disadvantage of the cloud storage is the bandwidth. It is getting better but still inferior to that of a local network storage. But you might be right - by the time the next gen is released it may be good enough to allow close to 0 local storage.