A new Variety report claims that Microsoft's Xbox has seen the greatest relative success in the digital download realm, despite the smaller user base compared to online services such as Amazon Unbox.

``Though exact sales figures aren't available from any Web site or studio, insiders agree that it's the most, and maybe only, positive story in digital movie downloads this year."

The ease of use factor seems to be the dominant reason for the success, since Xbox owners need not deal with transferring content from their computer, or have to deal with any funky proprietary software from web services. The Xbox is an all-in-one solution for downloading and watching movies right on the television, the preferred means of viewing for most people. On top of that, Microsoft is offering quality HD versions of many of the available movies and television shows. Ease of use + high quality = pretty obvious reason for success. Of course, the current situation brings this question to mind: how will Apple's upcoming iTV shake up the digital download market? Will it offer the same kind of ease of use and attract more folks to the idea of buying digital downloads?