Originally Posted by ozzieeagle

Anyone cheaper than http://www.play-asia.com/ for Console Games ?

Originally Posted by In Exile

sure I would. When the Australian internet infrastructure catches up to the 21st century.

When I got here 4 years ago, download quotas were appalling. My parents in law were still on a 200MB per month plan via bigpong. I was on optus 20GB for $100 p/m! Its better now, but to download HD media you are talking 10-15 GB per movie, and a steady reliable connection.

Hard media currently has its place in the world and at this point in time I will still buy certain types of it, and the novelty of getting some blu rays in your Christmas stocking will be a hard one to replace!!

Also at least currently you can shop around for a bargain with minimal fuss. Also, you would have to give up the obligatory gaming-manual-sniff when you first open the packet

CDs are something that I do not buy anymore. I just use iTunes (US site), which brings me onto my next point:

Take a look at Steam where you have blatant Australian price shafting vs. USA/EU in their gaming prices. Considering its digital and from the same source, this is bad. When you factor in things like potentially having to use a proxy for enabling digital download from an overseas source (to avoid paying the "australia tax" version, in all honesty most of the population wont understand, and will continue with physical media.

Currently the pricing trade off between buying a movie on itunes and buying a physical copy for a similar price makes people question why.

IMO The NBN will not be the bastion of hope that everyone thinks it will. For city dwellers such as myself, the increase in speed will probably be fairly negligible (via throttling), and I still imagine quotas being in place. Its the rural Australians that will really benefit. They will then be able to stream porn clips without having to buffer for 3 hours.

Sort out quotas, sort out pricing policies on internationally available products, and given decent competition and then digital media will take off.
on a global scale though, its a different story. There are still so many places which have terrible internet.

Also can you imagine people like Harvey Norman trying to switch to a digital delivery method for their optical media? They dont even have a product ordering website!! Their pricing policy will be comical and their demise will be spectacular.

Originally Posted by paulry

That's a good point. I also have far more staying power with reading paper based text. I began using reading glasses for the very first time last year so had put it down to the eyes. Maybe the technology still has a little way to go for the experience to be exactly like reading a book?

Originally Posted by unfair dinkum

how do use the US itunes I.E.?

Originally Posted by In Exile

set up an itunes account for the US using something like this method

then just buy online cards from webpages like this one.

I've used maximus cards many times for things like Xbox live EU cards and have no problems recommending them.
You'll pay marginally more than US dolar value, especially now that the AU has plummeted a bit, but US itunes store is much cheaper generally.

Originally Posted by Turban Explorer

Is there anyone that sells electrical stuff to Oz online yet?

Originally Posted by Amazulu

I'd be interested in this as well. Amazon.com does for some stuff but Amazon.co.uk will not send anything electrical. Maybe Amazon Germany? I've bought electrical stuff from Germany before and have had no problem getting it delivered here.