I honestly think the console is going to be fantastic, but for kids in college or kids at home who never watch TV or aren't responsible for a family, it will probably be overpriced with unused features.
As a husband\father, the guide and set top box features are awesome and switching between games, movies and TV is going to be so much better.
My guess is the Microsoft is trying to expand the XBox user base. Since a game console is going to sit in a living room anyway, they want it to be the center of the living room, which means it has to do more than just play kids games. It needs to absorb all of the functions of the devices in your living room, including TV, Music and Movies.
Good direction, this is where things are going so you might as well get a head start on it. They tried to do this in 2005 but people weren't ready. A small niche of people still cling to the awesomeness of media center and have made some phenomenal living-room centric media centers using tuners from Ceton and UI mods like mediabrowser. Combine that with the bower of a PC running steam big picture mode and a PC XBox wireless controller and you've got an amazing system.
Microsoft seems to be doing the same with the XBox One and I think its a fantastic idea. But for those kids out there who just want to sit in from of their TV alone playing games, the value may not be there. I still think Microsoft is going to sell a ton of these things if they market the other features correctly and to the right audience.