Or more likely it could be the standard HD format and its adoption in XB720 would then be inexpensive and look totally natural, so not stirring any trouble or malcontent. But doing it now, I agree, would only hurt MS.

no that would be an stupid idea, many people arent interested in Blu Ray, myself included

No need to add BR to the existing 360, not as an add-on or included. I guess it's a nice thought, but not cost effective especially not with the other movie watching options that already exist on the platform. Blue Ray will probably end up as some kind of niche medium for watching movies. Downloading is just more attractive to many ppl. That being said, I don't understand the Blu-Ray hatred in this thread. If you don't want it, don't get it. But alot of people have taken this as an opportunity to blast it like it sucks and it doesn't. If you had a full HD TV and someone gave you a BR player, you wouldn't use it? I guess maybe not. But there are some people who still want to own a physical copy of what they buy. A file on your hd or on someone's server is not a physical copy. Blu Ray is a HD solution for that want. I guess it comes down to personal preference. But I think that the haters that just hate for the sake of hating need to peel the foreskin of hatred from around their heads and look at the sunshine. There are all kinds of people in this world and not everyone thinks like you.

Of course people will use it. Whether or not they'd buy the Blu Ray movies is a horse of another color.

The point is - why is iTunes a hit? You can't hack it and get free songs. You pay for each song, and can't get the linear notes. All you get is an image file that's the album cover, and digits and data that states it's a song or video. Folks laughed it off. Who's laughing now?

Physical media? Want me to tell you the last time I bought a DVD? An HD-DVD? (Weeks ago for $5 a pop) A Blu Ray? I got 'Iron Man,' 'Kung Fu Panda' and 'Indiana Jones' for $20 a pop right after they came out. I refuse to pay any more than that. And to be honest, I had all of those movies in digital form beforehand.

You can debate why Blu Ray will top DVD - doubt it - but especially with an economic downturn, added distribution costs, packing costs, shipping costs and the cost of the media, you don't *think* companies will push that? Offer the same product without the added costs of paying someone to press a copy, electricity for a robotic arm (or a small 4-year-old in Romania to package it) to package it and then ship it across the world? Do you realize if the studios go digital download only how much they'd save?

One sterling example to consider. The first copies - Blu Ray, that is - of Ironman were botched. Goggle it - I found out from Blockbuster, myself. I don't know how many copies were effected, but several were. They were all tossed unless you owned a PS3 that could update it somehow. With a digital copy, you can replace the file and offer it again for download. No added costs to reship it, repress it and the like.

Sorry, but BR won't overtake downloads.

So the thoughts are that downloads are outselling BD already?, can anyone provide proof of this?

@madskillz

The iTunes shop parallel is misleading if you put it in context. A single song is about what, 5-6 MBs? You can download 5 or 6 of them or even a party playlist of 30 songs in a matter of minutes, and you're set for your evening with friends. This time was longer a few years ago when iTunes began its explosion, but never _days_ long.

On the other hand who is able to download on a whim 2 movies for an evening with friends, when each movie size is about 10GBs? Today it's just more practical for me to go to the videostore at the corner and rent home two Blu-Rays. In 15 minutes I'm done.

And as to the movies that I want to buy and keep, am I able today to download a 1080p movie with multiple video tracks, multiple subtitles and multiple audio tracks? I like to watch my movies in english, my GF prefers to see them translated, and I love director's comments (some of them on Blu-ray even coem with picture-in-picture).

Nothing of this can't be done with digital distribution. It's just a matter of software and bandwidth. We're just not there yet and I want to watch my high-def Kubrik movies today, not in two years.

Plus, nobody yet answered my previous question: if you have not Blu-ray, how is software like Id's "Rage" (or other big data-streaming games of huge size that we're going to see for sure in the next years) going to be distributed world-wide?

Just to be annoying, I'll reply to this part.  I actually can afford to do this.  I have fast enough bandwidth, and really, the movies are usually about 7-8GB since I just download the 720p version (no 1080p TV yet).

With my 22Mb/s download speed, that equates to 2.75MB/s.  Thats 165MB per minute, or roughly 9,900MB per hour (about 10GB), so for all the many Verizon FiOS subsribers, and emerging fiber optic markets, this is easily a reality.  I have the option of upgrading up to a 150Mb/s download speed with a 50Mb/s upload speed, which would equate to 67.5GB per hour of downloads, but obviously that speed is way too expensive and impractical for my current needs.  I'm just saying that since the technology is already there, all it will take from here on out is expansion.  In 3 years we could have a much larger and wider fiber optic network, with base speeds being the 150Mb/s rating.  It will likely still be about 8-10 years at least until everyone has access to this kind of tech, if not longer for the more rural areas, but it is indeed growing quickly.

In July 2008, Verizone FiOS had 1.4 million customers.  Today Verizon FiOS currently reaches 12.7 million homes in the US (just 7 months later).

Here in Holland, which is in the top 10 richest countries per capita in the world, Blu Ray had a marketshare of only 1.1% of units and 2.7% of revenue in 2008. http://www.vgchartz.com/forum/thread.php?id=60800&page=1

So really, BluRay is a niche medium. It could grow, but very unlikely in the coming years, seeing sharp economic downturn.

So I really don't see a reason for Microsoft to add a BluRay player to the 360. Streaming/Downloading will likely become more popular in a economic bad period, since it's cheaper.

@madskillz

No where in my post did I say that BR would overtake downloads. Not sure if you were suggesting that, but obviously downloading will overtake all. It's just too cheap and convenient to resist. My post was aimed at people suggesting that Blu ray is somehow useless. Like it's just sooo horrible that they would never touch it under any circumstances. That's just silly. It serves a certain niche as I stated before. And some ppl do want physical copies of certain items, be it a piece of music or a movie. That's just a fact. May not be alot of people, but they are out there. Like my Blade Runner Director's Cut, I want a physical copy of that. But that's just me. Point is everyone is different. And the more technology evolves, the more choices we will have; and that's a good thing.

They won't do that until the next generation machine.