Here's yet another bit of data that corroborates our speculation that
the Xbox 360 has been architected as a trojan horse for
digital delivery of all game content.
In a speech given last Friday at Howard University in Washington D.C., Bill Gates stated that neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray will matter in the long run and that both formats will be replaced eventually by plain old hard disks. This hints at one reason why Microsoft excluded "next-generation" disc media from the Xbox platform. It would be incredibly costly (and short-sighted) to stick a next-gen optical disc format in the Xbox 360 when their technical gurus believe that there's a chance that digital delivery of games could become commonplace in the Xbox 360-PS3-Revolution generation of consoles.
Gates said, "The format that's under discussion right now, HD versus Blu-ray, that's simply the last physical format we'll ever have. Even videos in the future will either be on a disk in your pocket or over the Internet and therefore far more convenient for you."
There are, of course, major challenges to overcome before digital distribution of games becomes commonplace. For one, super-duper high speed bandwidth needs to become far more commonplace. Only half of those online in America have broadband. For another, companies need to be sure that their digital products will not be replicated without their consent. Both problems are solvable. Whether they'll be solved this generation or next is the big question.
[Thanks, Odin]
