Don't forget the most important point, one that publishers are glossing over—physical media can be resold.
Oh yes. One of the most important things. Thank you for reminding me that. Physical copies serve also as a nice display or conversational piece.
I can buy a mint condition used copy of Warhawk for P1000 (or around $21). If I buy a brand new copy, I can also resell it later on even for as low as P800 (~ $17) which brings my cost of acquisition/play to only $18.
True. I actually got my copy of Warhawk $10 at Amazon's Black Friday deals last year.
Take this for example, The Killers' Day and Age album:
$11.99 on itunes. That's a 192kbps list of tracks. Good, but not great.
On CD it's $9.99, that's a physical disc with art and inserts and i could do what I want and rip em up to 320kbps or FLAC for better audio fidelity.
Also, Live from the Royal Albert Hall:
$12.99, that includes the whole, uncompressed live music on CD with a DVD of the concert.
on iTunes, that's $12.99 for a lousy compressed video and music.
Anyway on topic, since i've noticed the HD video streaming rentals, like Netflix, do not exist here, we're a long way off. Bandwidth (or lack of) is the primary concern along with international licensing issues.