it is. But redbox is also partnered with verizon for its instant video. MS and verizon have healthy ties right now. I am sure it will make its way to the other consoles too.  I am not sure on the extent of their deal with rebox/verizon/MS but they are three companies I like, and I hope they continue to work together.

Edit: After researching some more it looks like its more of a verizon/redbox partnership and MS got early access (possibly due to their relationship with verizon)

And if the Xbox One and the PS4 both are $400 or ­£400 or whatever the currency is where you are, how does the added value that Microsoft is delivering detract from the value of the console?  If for the same price, you get more features in the box with the Xbox One, wouldn't that make it a better value regardless of whether or not you think those features are important to you now or not?

While there is nothing wrong with people looking at lowest cost of ownership for an experience, regardless of features, people do tend forget that extra features like this which they have to pay extra for don't cancel the existing features which are already known to deliver the goods and don't occur any extra cost.

Here is an image I like to refer to esplaining this:

I think the gaming community has a beef with Xbox One in general as it isn't solely focused on gaming and they completely disregard that it most likely will be one hell of a gaming console without all the TV stuff. The problem is that focusing on existing features and users doesn't expand markets, and the moment youre not growing and expanding a market, you are seen as dead in the corporate world. 

Good luck with that working effectively, though.  It's hard enough to get what you want with a text-based search.  That would only work well with small, professionally tagged databases.

That is quite simple.

Added costs on the Xbox one: Kinect, fee for online play and probably all these TV features, no rechargeable battery on the gamepad, no used game resale value, no trust in long term core gamer software support. These all lower the value of the Xbox one for the consumer.

If both were sold at 400 the PS4 would offer alot more value per money. Microsoft loves to bundle in all these hidden fees. The TV features because completely inconsequential next to those.

I think the whole point of what MS is doing is to make the data bases easily searchable. I would think that voice would be just as easy as text. I usually have no problem finding videos on my current 360. I have no problems finding tv shows or movies through my cable box. I dont think MS will have too hard of a time making this work.

Edit: They show some of it here in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifa9Q7ATfVA&feature=youtu.be sorry can't embed

Why can't it work? Xbox One has Bing integrated. Look at Bing videos now  and search for something like "jean claude van damme"... its pretty good at sorting content from variouos web sources. 

Xbox One will also have access to the cable feed and the metadata available for each TV show.

Other programs and apps like Netflix may need to have an API which Xbox connects to to search their database but this isn't very difficult.

Finally Xbox has Kinect with its impressive voice recognition which is always on and is recording your voice habbits and tying them to your video selections.

Everything is there just needs to be put together...

Sorry, but you're attempting to introduce a different subject matter into this conversation.  That isn't what this conversation is about.

I asked if, for the same price, you get more features in the box with the Xbox One, wouldn't that make it a better value regardless of whether or not you think those features are important to you now or not?

We can have a bigger discussion in a different thread later about what features of the PS4 you do value and why later.  This thread is about the programming Guide feature of the Xbox One and where in what direction Microsoft may be headed with it.

So, answer the question.  If the Xbox One has features that the PS4 doesn't have, doesn't that make it a better value regardless of whether or not you think those features are important to you?

Microsoft bought a video search company about a year ago.  Many at the time wondered why.  That's why I said what I said in an earlier post.  Not only will you be able to ask for topical searches, but you'll be able to do searches for specific scenes.

I don't expect the initial Xbox One release to do much, but likely a year from launch and beyond it'll have expanded video search capabilities. 

A purchase is not a one-dimensional decision process. If i remove those factors the Xbox one will have more TV features, but then it wouldnt be a games console i was buying now would it? And the fact that these will probably require a gold subscription seems very relevant, since you would have to pay an additional fee to have acess to all these features.

I just cant see how the Xbox one would have better value because of these features, unless it wasnt a games console or if you were planning to buy a set up box anyways.