It's seriously foolish to think the MacBook Air would replace the MacBook. They are two different products for two different markets.
The MacBook Air, despite what some think, cannot be a full time computer for most people. Storage space is too small and too difficult to upgrade, no optical disc drive, significantly slower processors, no upgradeable RAM. It's just not something that can be a full blown system.
The MacBook, however, is. It has an optical drive. Despite what the overly vocal minority thinks, optical discs are still extremely important. Especially to the MacBook's target audience, college students, who rely on their computer for entertainment AND work. The MacBook has significantly faster processors than the MBA, upgradeable HDD, upgradeable RAM, and a larger screen.
The MacBook Air is more of a companion product unless you severely limit what you do with your computer. The MacBook is a full fledged computer.
As far as Blu Ray, I don't believe it will ever achieve the market penetration that DVD did. The adoption rate is much slower that it was for DVD at the same relative stage, and with competition from streaming, there are many (like myself) who would prefer the convenience of a "physical media-free" existence.
Actually, you couldn't be any more wrong. blu-ray is being adopted at more than twice the rate DVD was adopted back in the day.
There are those of us who care about quality as well. There isn't a streaming service out there that even matches the quality of a properly upscaled DVD, and sound quality isn't anywhere near as good as old DVD audio, and light years behind blu-ray disc. Those sub-DVD quality bit-rates for audio on streaming video are downright terrible. Reminds me of old matrixed Dolby Pro-Logic on VHS tapes.
Then theres other things to consider too. Most US (and world) internet connections are capped with limited bandwidth. In the US you'll generally just get an angry phone call, unless you're on AT&T. Then you WILL get hit with overages. Overages and disconnects are normal in other parts of the world. Theres also the issue of speed. Again, bit-rate comes into play. Blu-ray video peaks at 45Mbps, and uses the same H.264 encoding Apple does for iTunes video. iTunes video peaks at about 4Mbps for 720p.
And when it comes to downloading video? No thanks. Takes a lot longer to download an iTunes "HD" movie on my real world 30Mbps connection than it does for me to drive to the Red Box down the street and rent the blu-ray disc. Plus the blu-ray disc only costs $1.50 versus the $5+ iTunes charges.
Plus all of these streaming services try to lock you into certain devices and such. Want iTunes streaming/movie rentals? Apple hardware or bust. Same thing with Microsoft or Sony services. Need an Xbox or PS.
With a blu-ray disc I can play it on practically anything .
Physical media isn't going anywhere for a long long time.
But I got tired of storing huge numbers of discs, physically retrieving them and inserting them in a player, and wading thru ads and menus, etc. With terabytes of external storage, Apple TV, AirPlay, iTunes, and Netflix, I just serve up whatever I want whenever I want.
Except for the fact that Netflix streaming library is terrible. Seriously, I don't see why anyone pays for it. Unless you like B quality movies and reruns of TV shows you've probably already seen dozens of times in syndication before they make it to Netflix.
Now consider the revolution in streaming that has accelerated since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. We now have iPad, iTunes, and, soon, iCloud. Are they perfect? No. We need more bandwidth. We need 1080p. We need more accessibility to broadband and WiFi. Is it expensive? Perhaps. I cut Cable TV ($150 per month) and went to NetFlix ($8 per month), but yes, there is a significant hardware investment, not to mention broadband costs. But remember, the first VHS players were over $1000. I expect streaming quality will go up as costs go down.
First of all, why were you paying $150 a month for cable? My 30/25 internet service + over 200 channels for TV is only $75 or so with equipment rental, no contracts.
But anyway, every major ISP in the US at least has a major stake in traditional video revenue now. AT&T is imposing overages, Time Warner Cable is still salivating over the idea of overages (which they tried before, $1 per GB but backed off because of consumer uproar), Comcast hasn't raised their caps in 3 years, and other cable services are imposing caps as well. Streaming won't be able to take off unless theres some sort of government regulation that ends the government sanction duopolies in most neighborhoods and reverses decisions made under Bush to, once again, force incumbents to open their lines to third party service providers at reasonable cost.
All I'm saying is - 20 years is a long time. Like i said, you make me pause on the video game issue, but not enough to sway me completely. I say less than 20 years
I also want to point out the fact that server capacity would have to increase dramatically along with many other changes made. A good point to this argument is Steam. During their Summer sale I bought "Grand Theft Auto 4: Complete Edition" for $10. Even though I have 30Mbps down real world, it took a full 16 hours to download the game because their servers were getting slammed. Streaming cannot replace physical media until the quality can equal blu-ray in terms of both video AND audio and the servers can push out that video at full bandwidth without hiccups or becoming bogged down.
