Well, Sony didn't do much to cement it's dominance in the portable music arena when Creative released their HD-based mp3 players...Didn't think HD-based music players had much of a future... Fast-forward to now, and we see the iPod taking sales from every portable music player market there is.. But then again, I'm in Australia...so maybe it was heavily promoted elsewhere... In any case, Sony now has a couple of hard-drive models which in some respects is superior to the iPod.. Hate to say it, but the MD is probably going to be discontinued, very soon.. I own a MiniDisc myself, and now that it refuses to record and stuff like that...I don't know the alternative to it...(Don't worry folks, for some reason, an OLDER MD was able to record) Though, if that fails...which technology would I turn to? Price comparison of HD-based music players compared to MDs is really bad, since HD ones are really economical. Anyway, the good thing I LIKE about MD is that I always have to create a good playlist (due to limited space)...which makes listening to music on MDs VERY pleasurable...With over capacity...I'd probably be too lazy to make a playlist, and so just put everything on shuffle... Anyway, I do hope they continue with the MD...but it's future, I THINK, is kinda numbered...