tl;dr

That's just it. Realistically, only smaller well developed nations have a real shot at going totally DD within the next five years. But even the US will not be able to do it. I'd say at least ten years before the US has the infrastructure to handle the heavy tech aspects of DD and even then it still won't be a done deal as the fact remains that while Japan, the US and Europe will be able to do so, the rest of the world, China, India, etc. where the markets will be growing a lot will not have the access even within ten years, I'd wager.

So in the long term picture, Nintendo's prediction of twenty years before DD is really the norm isn't far fetched. I'd be kidding myself if I saw it happening any sooner than 15 years from now. Games, on size and cost alone, just do not lend themselves well to DD currently. Too many issues, one of which I think people underestimate is piracy. Its bad now for consoles [far worse for PC], but if they go DD, hacked games will be the norm everywhere. I get it that publishers and developers are seeing the piles of extra green they could get by going DD by cutting out the brick and mortar stores, but perhaps those visions of tall, luscious green grass on the other side of the solid wall aren't quite so green and luscious. I think it would be smart to show some prudence and not jump the wall just yet.

I'm not worried about it. There are just way too many barriers to having digital media exclusively and forgoing discs of any kind. Too many people think, "hey, I'm ready for the transition!" and forget that there are many, many people who either aren't ready themselves or would prefer not to give up their physical media.

Every time this kind of issue comes up, it seems like people say, "in a few years this will be the norm." Well, they said that a few years ago, and they will say it a few years from now, and a few years after that, and it still won't have happened on a large scale. People like their physical media, and there is too much of a wide gap between the technology that is accessible to some and what is accessible to the rest.

Huge rural areas of the U.S. are without broadband internet. There are tons of people out there who not only have not bought a single XBLA game, but may not even have moved to the current console generation. The average person likes having a shelf full of DVDs and games, and wouldn't want to get rid of that tangible sign of getting what they paid for. There are just too many barriers for a huge change to happen anytime in the near future.

@Fission Even with a physical copy, you don't own the game, you purchased a license from which to play it.

Also, shock and awe that T2 - probably one of the least progressive companies for any download or DD content - would say this.

Disc are the future.

Total agreement with Drakengard.

Movies, on the other hand, I can see those lending themselves to DD before games.
We'll see.

ISPs will see to it. No one's gonna be able to download 15+GB of data per game and still maintain the current sales levels. It's simply impossible with the data restrictions imposed on consumers by people who couldn't care less about the video game industry's bottom line.

ISPs are really the only thing standing in the way. Our ISP expand at a snail's pace. I'm enduring Time Warner only because I have to, they seem rather keen on going the way of Comcast and feeding us the same nonsense.

I still find it silly that people actually believe that "oh, physical media will stop existing in 2 years" and such nonsense.

physical media will never go away. never!

Down with physical media.

Physical media will never end. I know this because its my opinion.

I gotta say, normally I love getting the physical copy of something. to hold the case, cartridge, disc, whatever just feels really (extra?) legitimate. But I also really love steam so if more games were sold like that I'd be cool with that too.