Microsoft upgrades Xbox Live with live TV, and Kinect voice control
venturebeat.com
venturebeat.com
Assuming retail price for points purchased.
eg. Ok, I would like to buy this indie game for XXX points, but I need to buy points in blocks of YYY dollars which means after I buy this I'll have 200 unused points sitting in my account for who knows how long... screw it, I didn't really want that indie game that bad anyway.
Granted this is just one view of the situation and I may be an anomaly, but for me the whole point<->money system causes me to think too much which pretty much kills off any potential for impulse purchases.
Straight up dollar values and a click-to-buy system as streamlined as Amazon one click is what gets my money.
YMMV.
So for TV, I just use a tiny computer under my TV, which can download stuff from Usenet and play it without requiring updates or nine billion cubic feet of air per minute.
Updates, though, are very infrequent—I'd guesstimate about one every four months (although individual game updates can be much more frequent).
It's interesting you mention using a computer instead. The reason I like game consoles for gaming so much more is that they remove all the hassle of configuration and hardware issues—you just put the disc in and play. It looks like this'll be the case with TV as well.