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Roku, the little box that allows you to instantly stream tons of entertainment on your TV, has slashed its prices most likely in an attempt to stay competitive ahead of a deluge of internet video-to-TV products that are about to release.

Roku allows you to watch movies and TV shows on Netflix or Amazon Video On Demand, listen to Pandora or access your music library with MP3Tunes, catch the latest ballgame, and more without the need for a Home Theater PC (HTPC).  It’s the perfect device for the bedroom, office, or even kids room…anywhere that you might want to get away from having a full fledged HTPC setup.  In all reality this could include your main Home Theater if you’re not needing the flexibility and features that a HTPC / Windows Home Theater setup brings to the table…or rather, Living Room!

Roku comes in 3 flavors with pricing and features shown here (the SD shows “out of stock” but will go for $59.99):

With many Blu-ray players, consoles, and other devices already being able to provide the same features, less perhaps the wireless capabilities of the HD-XR model, it will be interesting to see how well Roku will hold it’s own in the near future as streaming media becomes more and more prevalent.  As mentioned on Mediabeat website, while “Roku has the early-bird advantage, a healthy variety of content channels from Netflix, Amazon, and Pandora, as well as sports partnerships with the NBA, MLB, and UFC. But with Google TV’s ambitious plans to completely redefine the way we watch television, Roku will certainly have to innovate if it wants to remain relevant.”

This is a very good point as it seems the entire world seems to be waiting to see how well Google TV will be accepted and how far they push the envelope.  Which…knowing Google, will be far!

Billy

[via MediaBeat and AVSforum]