Normally I'm against do-everything devices, but IMO this is a stroke of genius.
Everything about operating a TV today is pure pain. The centerpiece here is an obtuse, 100-button remote that no one fully knows how to use. You use this remote to get at the "mode switcher", which changes you from TV watching mode, to bluray watching mode, to gaming mode, to whatever else you do with your TV.
It's painful, not to mention a lot of people have receivers to handle the audio portion of this. It's like a really, really bad KVM.
The only way to eliminate that pain was to take over all of the above responsibilities, and MS just did that. With any luck this means you will basically never have to touch your TV's god-awful remote ever again, and the terms "Video 1", "Video 2", and "TV" will cease to have any meaning.
You're still going have a layer of terrible user interface where you're picking through all the kitchen-junk-drawer full of items that Microsoft has packed into this device. It won't be labeled "Video 1, Aux 1", true, but you'll still have to pick through every time you want to use the system. Probably end up being more of an interface problem, actually.
Power on, wait, skip special offers from Microsoft, no I don't want to update the console today, click to make anti-virus warnings go away, okay, now I can pick whether I want to play games or watch TV, TV, live TV or internet, internet, now pick the Netflix channel, and start watching! Hurray!
Yeah, that's so much better than picking "Video 2" and using the Netflix box.
Oh come on, no console - including the 360 - has ever been like that. There has never been an anti-virus, much less one that prompts you at startup. Console software updates are few and far between (twice a year on MS's schedule), not to mention it looks like they're doing more and more in the background.
Nor has Microsoft or Sony ever held up anything so you can watch a special offer. This is just FUD.
Go watch the keynote, they cover all of this. They're betting on voice control lowering the "depth" of the UI. Instead of "TV -> live TV -> Sy Fy -> Star Trek" it's just "go watch Star Trek", ditto for on-demand, ditto for sports, ditto for games even. Everything they showed today indicates single-action-to-final-destination.
I can't wait till families start having loud arguments about what show they want to watch, each trying to be louder than the other, so it picks up their voice. This was designed for families.
Everything about operating a TV today is pure pain. The centerpiece here is an obtuse, 100-button remote that no one fully knows how to use. You use this remote to get at the "mode switcher", which changes you from TV watching mode, to bluray watching mode, to gaming mode, to whatever else you do with your TV.
It's painful, not to mention a lot of people have receivers to handle the audio portion of this. It's like a really, really bad KVM.
The only way to eliminate that pain was to take over all of the above responsibilities, and MS just did that. With any luck this means you will basically never have to touch your TV's god-awful remote ever again, and the terms "Video 1", "Video 2", and "TV" will cease to have any meaning.