The battle for the living room entertainment king continues, and we have competitors like Microsoft, Sony, Comcast, AT&T, Dish, and Direct TV, among others. But now Netflix has made a bold step into the arena with a $100 one time purchase of the Netflix Player.  The mechanics are simple - you buy the small Roku box for a one time fee, maintain the Netflix membership (typically around $19), and you have access to over 10,000 movies, all without further fees - not to mention the DVD service as well.  This number dwarfs the offerings that digital cable has to offer, and Netflix offers special content such has entire series of DVD (Hercules, Red Dwarf, etc).

It will be interesting to see which company becomes the king of the living room, but while they duke it out the consumer is sure to have plenty of choices. 

Aloha from the Beach