Considering the amount of neglect that Microsoft gave to the HD-DVD playback via the 360, I would imagine that this ought to have little real effect on sales. Sure, the PS3 is no longer a method to access "one of two" HD formats, but it's still $400. I should certainly hope that there will be BluRay devices under $300 soon; WalMart has a $369 stand-alone player. Some will certainly do the math and say, "BluRay Video Games for 'bout the price of BluRay alone? Done deal!" but I still think that a lot of people are going to wait for the price to go down, and then just buy a stand-alone player.

What we want now is a external BluRay for the 360, instead the HDDVD. Soon!

Antonio.

I think people make a lot of impulse decisions, and the price is high enough that it is prohibative right now. I am sure there are quite a lot of people out there, hard as it is to imagine that just do not care much about video games and can not justice a Blu-Ray player for 350ish even if it does play games.

I would disagree as the ones stated before me, this will do nothing since it's for games, and the play movies is a nice to have. Considering Microsoft would rather focus on downloadable/streaming movies across Xbox Live I would hardly expect a Blu-Ray add-on anytime soon, unless there is an overwhelming consumer demand. Most of the industry company rumor and overall trends are leaning towards increased demand for HD movies downloads and less on a physical demand. As many have forecasted I feel that physical HD content will be going to the way of 8-tracks and Laser Discs, since most average consumers just got their DVD collections nicly established. The only way to "WOO" them to HD content will be via download, buying more hardware and new discs is probably not a great incentive to switch to a "low-moderately" sharper form of movie.

Sure people do it at the moment, but if we all started to download HD-Movies the net would grind to a halt, bad enough as it is.

And we poor suckers Downunder have limits on how much we can download a month (most have 10-15Gb), with throttle backs and xtra charges for going over it.

So I'll stick to my physical discs for now.

10 million people think $400 dollar is not too expensive and bought a PS3, so I doubt it's really a bigt deal.
I see it this way, 200$ for a PS3 and 200$ for blue ray player that is upgradable.
That is a good deal!!.
As for downloadable movie? what is saying that?
I will see netflix streaming movie to every 360 and ps3 before download ever going to be possible.
Streaming movie use a lot less bandwidth..you just watch the move when you need it, no need to download the whole thing...it's not like you are going to watch it again...and most likely the copy protection won't let you burn it either.
There is also a few thing working against download movie.
1)networks are slow. after the last dot com bust, there is no more tele-com that is brave enough to bet their farm and install next gen network.
In order for the download speed to be fast, we need internet version 2 which will require all routers in all network upgraded and all machines in phone/cable companies upgraded...I don't see that coming. Look at IP version 6...even that had not been working yet since companies refuse to upgrade their machines...you know how expensive is a large router in your local dial-up ISP?
it's tens of thousand just for the case and thousands for each router cards....it's expensive...
2)most people don't have huge hard drive on their computer even when computer harddrives are cheap.
a 200G harddrive (avg on desk top) can only store less than 50 DVD movies? (not even HD)
...just think you are going to be able to own 50 movies at most?
I doubt the copy-protection from these sites will allow you to burn to regular DVD...since it got no copy-protection!!....
may be burned to be able to watch on PC only since they can install something like the itune software..which is just like a root kit...
hundreds of millions of dvd players will just not be able to play your downloaded movies...
3)set top box...again...I don't see the harddrive larger than 250G...so it's not going to store that much...

buying DVD or streaming movie still allow you to have unlimited access to movies...
so download HD movie is just not going to happen.

You really live in the past.

Downloadable (HD) movies are already here for a longer time and are highly popular.
The Xbox Live Marketplace is a very good initiative and highly popular.
Too bad its not yet in all countries.

Internet providers are increasingly provinding more bandwidth and even glassfiber solutions (they are rolling it out in Eindhoven - Holland right now).

I've had 20mbit download for over a year now and it was already available a year earlier than that.

Many companies wanting a piece of digital downloads and are active with it.
Why? Because it will be a booming business real soon.
If you fail to see that its your problem but then keep on sleeping!

Digital downloads are here to stay and grow very large and rapid.
They will not drive optical media out of the market, of course not, but it will eat a very large chunk out of its market place.

Just follow digital download news on the internet, its full of it!!

Downloadable movies are definately cool. The only negative I have with the Xbox360 format is the "points" payment system. I'd download more if they would dump that stupid idea for real $$$ in the payment method. Though, the PS3 will never be able to hold a candle to the Xbox360 and Microsoft's Live service for ease of use and speed.

I'm not much of a movie renter (any more), but this method has brought me back to renting a little bit. I have 15Mbit downloads, and I can download a full length movie in less time than it takes me to get in my car and be 1 block from the house going to the rental store before it's done. (~ 5 mins)

If only you could "buy" a movie with this method and have it always available any time you wanted to re-view it, then downloads would be perfect. i.e. like the Steam method for games, which I love. I can re-install a game to any new computer at any time from Steam without needing more than my login for my Steam account. That just can't be beat, and blows retail boxes out the window for reliability, stability and infinite availability.