My wife and I don’t go to the movies very often, usually just to catch those few films that should be seen in a theater. We used to rent a lot of movies, but our local Blockbusters closed and Best Buy started selling most releases for only a few dollars more than a rental fee. Unfortunately, it’s left us with a bookcase of DVDs, many of which I doubt we’ll ever watch again.

I finally put my foot down and promised ourselves we’d only purchase those films we knew we’d want to keep, like Oscar winners and our favorite genres. Since we have Directv, we got by for a long time catching things on pay-per-view. The drawback was its selection, which is limited to only a handful of titles.

After finally settling on an Xbox 360, I poked around the LIVE Marketplace and noticed its large selection of movies and television shows. This week, we finally broke down and purchased one. Needless to say, I think we’re found a winner for us. I threw a few Microsoft Points onto my account, selected our movie, and was sitting back on the couch with my wife watching it within minutes. The quality of the film was just as good as our DVDs and the buffer was more than enough to allow us to stream it without interruption. In terms of cost, it was actually cheaper than our typical pay-per-view and considerably less than a rental fee. On top of everything else, I didn’t have to clear more space in the bookshelf to hold another mediocre title.

The recent announcement of Netflix partnering with Microsoft to offer its downloadable service to Xbox LIVE users is starting to look even better. We have slow mail service in our town, so renting movies from Netflix hasn’t been an option for us. After our recent experience, I’m excited at the thought of being able to watch any film or television show from its selection for a monthly fee.

I was a little skeptical about Microsoft’s desire to make their console an entertainment system, rather than just a gaming platform. The more we dive into our Xbox 360, however, the more I have to give them credit for some of its features. It’s certainly fast becoming the primary source of entertainment in our home.