Perhaps MS didn't say that the Xbox 360 would be an all-in-wonder home theatre replacement, but they stopped just short of saying that. Here's a few quotes I picked up on the web and I'm sure I could find a lot more if I looked also.
"MS continues to advance its vision of digital entertainment anywhere," said Will Poole, senior vice president at MS. "By seamlessly integrating MS's premium entertainment devices, we are greatly enhancing the ways in which our customers will experience entertainment in and around their homes."
Some guy named Allard also had this to say when comparing himself to Sony:
"Our hardware's the same. We got to kick ass on that and service--it just got better. Our media support is really, really good and we got the design right. If I'm [Sony Computer Entertainment president] Mr. [Ken] Kutaragi, I've got a lot of work to do between now and spring, but hopefully attending the worldwide launch thing is another thing I'd be thinking about."
Yeah, really impressive media experience. I've got a 4 year old Apex DVD player that can play mp3 and does the picture format, which is about all the 360 does as far as media is concerned.
Ok, so it can do a little more, but it's certainly not anything ground breaking. Hopefully they'll release some improvements when either the PS3 puts some pressure on them (although I doubt if Sony will give any better media experience) or when they get caught up on their backlog of orders and need to give this thing another boost. Until then, I'll be sticking with my XBMC.