Amazon Instant Video on Xbox 360
amazon.com
amazon.com
All these nice capabilities are available now on the Xbox, Twitter, Facebook, Netflix, Amazon Instant, Hulu, etc. Even some cable companies are offering the use of the Xbox as an IPTV device for their own service, including Comcast last I checked.
Naturally you have to pay for each of those separately, for those that require a fee. No big deal, they're already separate services that just happen to work on the Xbox, just like some of them work on my Roku, or my Apple TV, my iPhone, my iPad, or any number of other platforms.
However Microsoft appears to be the only company charging me, the owner of the box I bought from them, and the user of those other services I already pay for, for the ability to use them on their platform.
All those things stop working, even Twitter and Facebook, if you quit paying for Live Gold, and that's actually the primary motivation for a lot of people to pay for it month after month, because stuff stops working on the box if you don't, stuff that Microsoft isn't even in charge of running, stuff that you're already paying for.
self.rant = OFF;