It would be cool if providers offering this then allowed you to rent games over their systems.
In the US, a cablecard ready PS3 or XBOX 360, with a 250-500GB HDD, DVR software with rental games on demand, would be a great recipe for couch potato. Life? What's a life? I got me a PS3-DVR-IPTV-VOD-Rental-Blu-Ray machine.