I'm quite an avid collector of blu rays and films in general, i must about 200- 300 dvd/blu ray. But as with music and games, i'm starting to question more and more why i have all thesee physical objects. I kind of fluctuate between the advantages of both.
But to be honest i can see why sony have decided to drop the UHD player from their machine.
I posted this in the PS4pro has no UHD drive thread on the GG section:
I just been looking at the stats of blu ray sales in the UK. There is only sales data till up to 2014, but i was honestly surprised how low the sales were, i kind of had it in my head sales were equal.
From the AVForums
Number of discs sold in the UK, by format and year
DVD
1998 0.2m
1999 4.0m
2000 16.6m
2001 41.3m
2002 89.9m
2003 145.0m
2004 196.5m
2005 211.2m
2006 227.0m
2007 248.1m
2008 252.9m
2009 234.6m
2010 210.1m
2011 191.8m
2012 162.0m
2013 143.4m
2014 124.9m
Blu-ray
2007 0.8m
2008 3.7m
2009 8.4m
2010 13.0m
2011 15.3m
2012 16.7m
2013 18.8m
2014 17.3m
I was quite shocked to see that DVDs were still outselling Blu Rays almost 6.5/1.
The combined sales of blu rays and dvds dropped significantly the next year too according to a chart i can't seem to post unfortunately. It dropped to 119 m Combined sales.
So this is just not a physical vs digital issue, it seems in general, people don't care about quality or premium experiences. A shame really. But that how it is.
I think UHD and Blu rays will have a space to exist though, the enthusiast market is pretty strong still and i think that will keep physical media alive for a while. There is a good article on flavour wire about it.