The issue with the pricing on the ION is that the margins are likely already thin at the current retail prices. This doesn't leave much room for someone to budget in software development for a custom front end while trying to retail it at the same price point.

I think System on a Chip solutions are still going to be advantageous for a while, especially since they don't need to be especially fast on the general processing since they include silicon to deal specifically with MPEG and AVC variations.