: It goes deeper than that. The Kinect has facial recognition and can read
: expressions.
: This creates the potential for it to analyse a users reactions and interests
: in adverts and such. That kind of data could essentially be put into a
: spreadsheet format.

Yes, if the Xbone can properly analyze (and possibly categorize) that data on its own-- if not, it'll definitely be way too much data for Microsoft to process.

: Hardly that comparable.

What do you mean?

: An awful lot of assumptions there based on very little.
: This things don't just happen in exactly the same way that games don't just
: happen.

That's true, but my point here is that the hardware (and some of the software) it takes to play TV, movies, and music (and use the Internet for that matter) is equal to or less than what any of current console has, let alone a future console-- it's not like they decided to put more TV chips in it and less game chips or something. Other than the HDMI input and however it connects to other components, I'm not aware of any reason adding this other entertainment stuff should have any effect on the hardware design or any significant effect on the software design.

: Budgets are what they are. There is only so much money and it is divided up
: accordingly.
: Significant money going into entertainment services is money not going
: towards gaming aspects.

Now I think you're assuming based on very little. In particular, unless I'm reading something wrong, you're assuming gaming and everything else related to the Xbone were part of one budget (other than Microsoft's total budget), and that that budget isn't flexible at all.

: Time will tell how it pans out, but I certainly wouldn't claim that any of
: these features will be trivial to add or maintain.

It looks to me like they've already been added, so we don't need to worry about that. Either way, they tried out a lot of this with the 360 first so at least they're going into it with experience.