Internet connections are getting faster and faster every year, digital downloading services are raking it in hand over fist, and a growing number of games are choosing to release without the benefit of a retail component.

Most recently, the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PlayStation Network have provided the impetus for even greater leaps and bounds in the growth of the digital downloading industry.

All these things considered, it's easy to assume that retail may very well become a thing of the past very soon.

Not quite, says Bo Andersen, President and CEO of the Entertainment Merchants Association (EMA). He mentioned during a meeting with the Content Delivery and Storage Association (CDSA) and the MEDIA-TECH Association (MTA):

Digital distribution certainly will be a significant part of the entertainment industry in the future, but our predictions are that packaged media will continue to dominate the home video sector until 2015 at least.

Contributing to his somewhat conservative view on the industry was probably a recent survey conducted by the EMA and the CDSA. The results, covered in one of our previous articles, led Andersen to the conclusion that gamers consider game packages to be an integral part of the full value of a product.

The EMA is co-producer of "The Future of Packaged Media '09," which will be presented February 3 to 4, 2009 at the Hilton Los Angeles in Universal City, CA.

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