Hardware availability post digital only game consoles

[richieb1971]

Hi,

Obviously there are regional differences on how blu ray hardware is sold and in what numbers. I always found the USA to be more "hugging" of older technologies. CRT televisions being an example as they were sold years later than than in the EU where they dropped CRT sales in the early 2000's.

But what happens when game consoles no longer support an optical drive and we rely 100% on the distribution of dedicated blu ray players and movie discs?

I live in the UK and blu ray players are not really sold in the mainstream. Curry's, which is the UK's equivalent of Best Buy carries 19 optical players on its website, but in store they carry about 2.

The only bricks and mortar store that carries brand new movies and TV shows is HMV (In large numbers) as supermarkets now shrink their shelving to 10% of what it was 5 years ago. This is also mirrored by physical games which also has a very small footprint in the supermarkets.

There are currently a lot of stats being thrown around that physical movies and games are shrinking in their market %.

So what do you see in your area? Is there a shift? Do you think there is a future for optical movie discs?

Lets debate.