From what I understand, several of the features that would make it a nice, solid home theater PC solution--their OneGuide, simple Netflix app use (not membership)--are paywalled behind the Xbox Live Gold membership. I think that's what I read last week. Netflix is similarly paywalled on the 360. So there's a monthly cost incurred on top of that if you want the full functionality of this entertainment device as such, without utilizing the gaming.

Of course, it does play games, too. Both of us, as gamers, might incur that cost because of the obvious multi-player gaming element this media device *also* provides. To me, though, it seems more sensible for someone purely looking for a home media entertainment solution (I.e. a non-gamer) to look elsewhere, like the low-cost Chromecast or something.

(My phone thought I meant non-American by non-gamer. Silly autocorrect.)

Count me among the paranoid, though. However, I'm not worried about the Big Brother government as much as I am concerned of an intelligent cyberhacker using the device to remotely case my room for activity and/or stuff to steal. The thing detects heartbeats, for crying out loud. Recently hackers were able to hack Samsung smart TVs to remotely access apps and the camera. It's not a stretch to think that Kinects will be next, especially when it becomes commercially available, and *especially* given its capabilities. It's naive to think it will be immune to such hacks.

I'd just prefer not to wilfully install a peripheral like that. While it has the potential to be an awesome control interface, it comes with the silly side-effect of being a great surveillance device for someone who knows how to access it.