A few things to point out, with respect to the AppleTV:

An AppleTV, to an audio person, is only worthwhile if your only view to your music is through iTunes. If you're into Pandora, it can't help you. Similarly, to a video person, an AppleTV is painful to make work with content that you get any other way than through the iTunes Store.

Boxee and XMBC change all that. Suddenly, a hacked AppleTV is just all kinds of useful, but the software-based decoder can't keep up with HD.

The new Boxee Box (made by D-Link), combined with all the apps that it supports, looks to be a very attractive alternative to the AppleTV, at least for the collegiate BitTorrenting / Pandoraizing crowd.

Apple could counter this by bringing apps to the AppleTV, particularly iPhone game ports. That would let them take on the Wii. If they keep the price low enough, it could be a real winner.