The next generation of household consoles has already started, and boy, are we in for a treat. Not only do we have the big three companies (Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft) fighting for our limited living room space — we have something more interesting as well: Android and Steam.

Xbox 360 (left), Ouya (center), PS3 (right)

In November, Nintendo launched the Wii U with its touch-screen controller, the GamePad, and high-definition graphics. Sony recently announced the successor to the PlayStation 3, and soon we’ll start seeing the next Xbox. Microsoft and Sony are battling it out in the hardware war, each trying to best the other by being stronger, better, and faster. Nintendo stopped playing that game years ago and decided to try a different approach by offering unique gameplay features with motion controls.

Both Microsoft and Sony tackle the premium side of the market, leaving Nintendo with the lower end to conquer. The last time I checked, both the PS3 and Xbox 360 were in the $299 range, with the Wii hitting a ridiculous $99 and the Wii U around $249. This is fantastic news for us gamers. No matter what your allowance is, you’ll find something that works for you. This brings me to my question: where do Android and Steam fit in?

Valve wants to take over your television.

Valve, the creator of Steam, is working hard to bring its popular digital distribution service from millions of computer screens to your living room TV. To do this, Valve introduced a new feature for Steam called Big Picture Mode (BPM). Essentially, this enables gamers to run Steam with a controller in front of a TV rather than a keyboard and mouse. It does this by changing up the user interface. I use BPM fairly often when playing games that are gamepad-enabled, and I quite enjoy it.

Valve has also announced it will be coming out with its own hardware to slap its new software experience on. This technology has been cleverly named the Steam Box. Details are scarce at the moment. What we do know is that Valve wants to make PC gaming easier and more comfortable by presenting a console-like experience. Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve, has said he expects Steam Box prototypes in the next few months.

Valve has kept mum about pricing, which is unfortunate. This is what everyone wants to know. This is the deal breaker. PC gaming can be ridiculously expensive. If Valve is able to bring powerful hardware, a small form-factor, and reasonable pricing together in one happy package, that could mean a massive shift for PC gaming. People wouldn’t dismiss it just because of the price barrier. The need for a monitor, speakers, keyboards, mice, and so forth would be gone. Instead, you plug the device into your TV, and it does the rest.

Ouya controller and the system.

Android is a different beast altogether. It’s the only system that is based as a mobile platform, and now it seems to be steering its way to your television. At least, that’s what the Ouya console is promising: a $99 Android console that hooks up to your TV. It’s a no-frills system. The developers encourage you to mess with it — they want you to get your hands dirty and mod the system. This fact alone will probably lure in much of the modding community. The Ouya may have a strange name and an affordable price, but does it have the games to back it up? A console can’t survive without a strong library. Perhaps with the convenience of a controller at hand, more games like Dead Trigger and Shadowgun will populate the Android marketplace.

Ouya isn’t the only console getting Android games on the big screen. Nvidia recently announced and showed off what it calls Project Shield. It looks very similar to a Xbox 360 controller with a 5-inch HD screen attached to it. Project Shield is backed by some serious horsepower, and it’ll be able to play any game from the Android marketplace as well as stream your Steam library over a Wi-Fi connection. A price and release date have yet to be announced. Nvidia will have to take a close look at its competitors, the Nintendo 3DS and Sony’s PlayStation Vita. The 3DS seems to be priced just right at the $149 mark whereas the Vita is struggling with sales — probably because of its higher $249 price. I’m afraid that Nvidia might have the specs and form factor down but will miss the beat with a too-high price tag to justify buying the slick piece of hardware.

Project Shield in all its glory.

Android is in a unique place right now, and it has the freedom to cover all angles of the market. From the Ouya to Nvidia’s Project Shield, it has the low-end and high-end markets covered. But if Valve can get the right combo of price/performance, we’ll very likely see PC gaming become much more common in the living room. Sony and Microsoft are going to battle for the most horsepower while Nintendo quietly and safely experiments with crazy motion and touch controls. One thing is for sure: we’ve never seen anything quite like this before. These companies and platforms are all fighting a war for our living rooms.

Welcome to the next generation.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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If you want a PC as your gaming console, you’re gonna need a bigger wallet.

PC manufacturer Xi3 revealed that the base Piston will start at $1,000. It features a 3.2 GHz AMD quad-core processor with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD — but no dedicated graphics card. At $1,339.99 and $1749.99, you get 256GB and 512GB of storage, respectively. Customers who preorder before March 18 will get $100 off the aforementioned prices, and Xi3 guarantees those gamers will receive it before the end of 2013.

“Clearly, the computer/video gaming market is huge, both in the personal computer and traditional console markets,” Xi3 chief executive officer Jason Sullivan said in a statement. “That being said, we believe there is a crying need for a machine that captures the best of both worlds, with the upgradeability of computer gaming rigs and the design and form factor of consoles. We believe our Piston Consoles do exactly that — deliver the beauty and small size of consoles with the upgradeability of computers.”

In January, Xi3 revealed that Valve invested in the project and was performing some “exploratory work” for the eventual Steam Box. Valve is still working on its own Steam Box, which brings the company’s Steam PC gaming experience to the television, but it will continue to work with partners who wish to release their own takes on the concept.

This will create a whole category of Steam Boxes, and the Piston is the first in that category.

Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft have owned gaming on the television for a number of years, and now Ouya and GameStick are attempting to bring Android gaming to the big screen. Valve chief executive Gabe Newell claims he isn’t worried about any of those companies as much as he is Apple, but then Sony and Microsoft probably aren’t too worried about a $1,000 PC gaming console, either.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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I don’t see how anyone is going to “own” the next generation of gaming. The upcoming cycle will be a system shock to the industry, and while it won’t mark the end of any established platform, I see it shifting the industry out of its console-centric mindset.

If the recent Consumer Electronics Show was any indication, Valve — in conjunction with a handful of PC makers — will try to disrupt the console market in 2014. Modular computer maker Xi3 will likely be the first out of the gate with the Piston later this year. Valve will follow with its own fabled “Steam Box,” named after the company’s popular Steam game distribution platform, in early 2014. Both units have the same goal: to make PC gaming easy and accessible on the television. Of the two, whatever “official” machine Valve produces will be more successful with pure gamers, but two things give me pause.

Steam’s Big Picture

First, Steam Box will be Linux-based out of the box, not exactly an operating system that supports a robust gaming library — even on the Steam service itself. Valve co-founder Gabe Newell has said that users are welcome to install Windows on the machine if they like. But given his cooling attitude toward Windows as an OS for gaming, I wonder if the company will be pushing Linux versions of future games from this point on in preparation for Steam Box. I also wonder whether it will adopt Linux for Steam’s huge backlog of games, which would be a major draw for any potential buyer. I’d hate to think that Valve would leave it up to the consumer to configure a dual boot for Windows and Linux because that will probably scare off buyers new to a PC gaming setup.

Second, I question how pricing will work out. Xi3′s “Piston” — essentially its version of a Steam Box — could start at a fairly steep price point of $999, which is quite a shock if it’s looking to woo console buyers who’ve never paid more than $600 for a new console. Valve may introduce a version of its own Steam Box at a reduced price, but I think the trade-off will be reduced “upgradability,” which is often a draw for PC gaming. At too low a price point, Steam Box is simply going to become another console with locked-in hardware. Since Microsoft and Sony seem to be planning announcements for their next-gen consoles before the Electronic Entertainment Expo, I think E3 will be Valve’s show this year if it chooses that venue to discuss the Steam Box. It’s important that it announce hardware prices and a concrete launch date then because I suspect it’s going to be an either/or decision for most gamers on whether they’ll choose either a PlayStation 4/Xbox 720 or a Steam Box. If they choose one of the former consoles in late 2013, that could make for a slow start for Steam Box if it launches in early 2014.

Nintendo has already delivered its answer to next-gen, going for innovation on the Wii U with its unique-screened GamePad controller. It’s HD gaming about six years after it became the industry standard, but Nintendo will find an audience with those faithful to its brands and may work its magic once again on the more casual audience it roped in with the Wii. If Nintendo’s eShop stays friendly to independent game developers, I could see it becoming a well-known platform in the vein of Steam for smaller titles. That, and Nintendo’s own stable of franchises (including a healthy backlog on the new Wii U Virtual Console) will give the console solid footing in the marketplace even if the Wii U doesn’t land every triple-A release available on competing platforms.

Sony needs to rebuild some credibility going into this next generation. The company seemed to have a lot of gall entering this one — introducing the original PlayStation 3 models at astronomical prices of $499 and $599 and assuming players would pay for it because it’s a PlayStation. While it looked like the most powerful of the current-gen consoles on paper, imagine the surprise when most multiplatform games ran better on the Xbox 360 because it was easier to develop for. Having a month-long security breach in the online network in 2011 was no confidence-builder, either.

Sony has been all over the map with how it wants to approach gaming. From the PlayStation Move to crossplay with the PS Vita, it hasn’t really delivered a knockout punch anywhere. I see some promise in the fact that Sony says it will develop the next PlayStation without using its own proprietary technology. Hopefully, that will make the next console easier to develop for and result in more consistent quality across games on the system.

I don’t see Sony having a proprietary medium to hinge to its next console the way it did the previous two generations with the DVD and Blu-ray discs. Sony has announced it is developing a multichannel online network for streaming video content. Last year, it also bought online game streaming service Gaikai. I would imagine both products will find their way on to Sony’s next gaming machine. Hit the right price point and give gamers a more humble attitude, and the PlayStation could bounce back nicely — especially since the platform has as many exclusive quality franchises as Nintendo does.

Microsoft seems to know what it wants to do with the next-generation Xbox. Whether that resonates with the consumer is unclear, but its plans seem nothing short of transforming the way you interact with entertainment in your living room. Xbox is heading into the next generation with the strongest online gaming community, Xbox Live. It’s also successfully transformed that marketplace from strictly a gamer’s paradise into something more appealing for people who want a platform for movies, music, and other streaming content in one box.

I see Microsoft getting smarter with how it integrates its Kinect peripheral into the gaming experience. Even though Kinect started life as an answer to the Nintendo Wii’s motion controls, it had little use for gamers who were content to sit still while playing. I personally have only experienced two things while trying to play on the Kinect with my kids: boredom and pain. The next-gen Kinect seems to be on track to register more subtle player movements — not the mention the fact that Microsoft might have plans for it to project images out into your living room.

Microsoft could stand to develop a few new in-house intellectual properties as it’s been riding the Halo horse for a very long time now. I do think we’re going to see some unique stuff from the Xbox outside of games. I expect the console will be a hub for exclusive programs and streaming entertainment options. I haven’t been to Microsoft headquarters myself, but I’d wager a guess the phrase “total entertainment package” has been thrown around in a few staff meetings.

Regardless of the console, this next generation could see the end of a constant stream of on-disc $59.99 releases and a move toward a series of shorter, cheaper downloadable entries. Telltale’s 2012 adventure game The Walking Dead was well received by the gaming public and was broken into five episodes that released throughout the year. I don’t see why this wouldn’t be a viable distribution model for most if not all games on the Sony’s and Microsoft’s platforms. My guess is that Nintendo will avoid this strategy at least with first-party games largely because it can get people to pay full price for a new Mario or Zelda, no problem. If you’re moving to one of the PC platforms mentioned above, I’m not sure you’ll have any choice but to opt for download distribution. These upcoming machines appear to be missing a disc drive.

Given all this, it’s difficult for me as a gamer to know where my preferences are ultimately going to fall in this next generation. For the first time, I can possibly see myself skipping out on console gaming if the Steam Box selection is compelling enough. Consoles, however, are no longer simply gaming devices, and in an era where I get more and more of my content through Internet streaming, a platform like Sony’s or Microsoft’s has to be a consideration as well. And no matter how much some would like to, you can’t discount Nintendo on anything in the games industry.

The video game market might be more fragmented than ever a few years from now, but that might not be a bad thing. Developers will want to make their games available on as many platforms as possible, and the smaller download market for games might make buying content easier and cheaper than it was in previous generations. It will be a tall order for any one company to dominate the evolving landscape from here on out.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Normally, we video game guys don’t have to work too hard when it comes to covering consumer electronics. We have a few consoles, a few handhelds, maybe a few peripherals here and again, but it’s nothing like crazy world of phones and tablets … or at least it wasn’t.

This year, something happened: We started getting video game consoles from companies other than Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.

These alternative gaming devices, sometimes called microconsoles, come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. You want to stream your games like Netflix? You can do that. Want to play Android-based games on a tablet with controls built into a handle? That’s a thing. Want Valve’s Steam experience on your television? It’s happening.

But it’s damn hard to keep up with everything. How do they work? What kind of games will they run? How much do they cost? OK — I’m panicking now just thinking about putting all of this information together for you … but I did.

We’ll try to keep this easy. Let’s get started.

Android-based microconsoles

Ouya

Price: $99
Release date: March (preorders)/April (retail)
Website: Ouya.tv

The Ouya is the single biggest reason I’m explaining all of this. When the tiny console box launched on Kickstarter — and raked in over $8 million from backers — it created more questions about the future of gaming than it answered.

Ouya’s basic concept is to bring the open platform of Android gaming to the television. It accomplishes this by providing a cheap box that has the guts of a smartphone but doesn’t rely on touch-screen controls. Instead, it comes with a physical controller with buttons, analog sticks, and everything else that gamers require to rack up a dozen headshots in a first-person shooter.

The console plays Android games, most of which aren’t designed for a controller, so Ouya is also a digital-distribution platform that will showcase original games (and Android games that the developer redesigned for physical controls).

On top of that, Ouya’s creators also promise the device is completely open to hacking. That means emulators and piracy. A good chunk of consumers may get something like Ouya just to play classic Super Nintendo games on one of the many Android emulator apps. A bunch more might get the system and pirate Android games (not that the developers can’t fight that on their level with authentication).

For Ouya to succeed, it will have to build a library of games that convince a portion of the audience to get their software directly through the new microconsole. This is possible.

Ouya is about to ship out to consumers in just a few months. It could easily launch with games like Minecraft Pocket Edition and others that already have full controller support.

The little Android has a few months to prove it’s worth the HDMI input it’s taking up on your television, otherwise people are likely to forget it as the new consoles come pouring down and wash it away.

GameStick

Price: $79
Release date: April
Website: Gamestick.tv

Take everything I wrote about Ouya and apply it to GameStick. It’s nearly all the same, but the GameStick is smaller than Ouya and $20 cheaper.

This thumb-drive-sized HDMI device uses Android. It has smartphone-like components. It comes with a physical controller. It has its own digital distribution platform.

The main difference between Ouya and GameStick is that PlayJam, the company behind this tiny device, is a game developer first. That could mean the GameStick will have better software support.

GameStick’s Kickstarter still has nine days left. So far, 4,240 backers contributed over $450,000.

Android-based tablet-controller hybrids

Project Shield

Price: ?
Release date: Q2 2013
Website: Shield.nvidia.com

Now things start getting weird. We went full hands-on with Nvidia’s Project Shield Android handheld at the Consumer Electronics Show. That’s when we discovered Project Shield is an impressive gaming device with some seriously cool features.

Nvidia’s handheld looks like an Xbox controller with a TV jammed into it. It features the company’s next-gen Tegra 4 processor and a 5-inch touch screen that flips up during gameplay.

It’s another controller-focused take on Android gaming. It has an HDMI port, so gamers can plug it into their televisions and use it just like Ouya. Developers are gonna have a lot of options if they want to make a mobile game that supports physical buttons.

But Project Shield has something Ouya and GameStick do not: The ability to stream games from your PC directly to the portable unit. This doesn’t mean you’ll be playing The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim on the bus, but your PC could feed games to the system if you’re sitting on your couch. In that way, the device is a lot like a Wii U GamePad controller for the PC. Only instead of New Super Mario Bros. U, gamers can tap into their entire Steam libraries.

If Nvidia prices Project Shield competitively, it will take a lot of the oomph out of the impact that the other Android alternatives will have.

Wikipad

Price: $499
Release date: 2013
Website: wikipad.com

Wikipad is the name of the company and the product. The device is a 10-inch Android-based tablet that comes with a game-controller dock. This shell adds analog sticks, face buttons, and shoulder buttons to what is otherwise a pretty standard Android slate. Those controls, however, allow for precision in games from both the Google Play market and the PlayStation Store.

Sony provides a lot of classic PlayStation titles on its Android store, and a system with physical controls is the ideal way to experience them. Only Sony-approved devices can access its store, so hopefully GameStick, Ouya, and Project Shield can get on that list.

Wikipad should have launched its tablet in late 2012, but it delayed it. It still isn’t available, and the tech grows old. Tegra 3 is capable, but Tegra 4 hardware is due out as early as April and will likely blow it away.

Windows-based tablet-controller hybrid

Razer Edge

Price: $999 (base)/$1299 (pro)/$1499 (pro + gamepad)
Release date: Q3 2013
Website: Razerzone.com

OK, enough Android. Perhaps you prefer your console/handheld alternatives to have a PC flavor? Gaming equipment company Razer might have what you need.

It’s called Razer Edge. It’s a 10-inch Windows-based gaming tablet with screaming hardware. The $999 “basic” version starts with a Intel Core i5 1.7 GHz processor that can overclock to 2.6 GHz. It has 4 GB RAM, 64 GB SSD, and a GeForce GT 640M graphics card all packed into something not much bigger than a standard tablet. The $1299 Pro model upgrades the system to a Core i7, 8 GB RAM, and 128 or 256 GB SSD.

A rig with the Edge’s specs can run Skyrim at around medium to high settings. That’s not bad for a portable device.

Add $200 to the price and it comes with a controller dock similar to the Wikipad. Razer Edge also has a keyboard dock for traditional gaming and a living-room dock with a plethora of inputs and outputs. Just like most things on this list, the Razer Edge can connect to your TV, work with wireless controllers, and replace your console.

Valve-approved Windows/Linux-based Steam Box things

Xi3 Piston

Price: $999
Release date: March
Website: Xi3.com

The Steam Box is something much more nebulous than the Xi3 Piston micro PC, but it gives us a good idea of what Valve wants.

Valve is pushing the idea of a TV-connected gaming PC pretty hard. The Xi3 is a result of that. Valve put some money into Xi3 and is definitely experimenting with the company’s hardware. We’ll get into what exactly Valve is doing with the Steam Box as a whole in the very next section, but let’s explain the Piston first.

The Piston is a tiny little powerhouse. It’s a small cube-like device with a 3.2 GHz quad-core processor from AMD that packs the graphic on the same chip. It has 8 GB of RAM and up to 1 TB of storage capacity.

You’re supposed to plug this thing into your TV and run Steam in Big Picture mode, the interface the company designed for television displays, and that’s it. You have a Steam console.

The Steam Box

Price: ?
Release date: ?
Website: ?

Valve is working on a piece of hardware all their own. It is a Linux PC that will plug into your TV, but the company is also inviting others to do the same. If those companies want Valve’s help, Valve will help.

The software giant is going for a three-tiered strategy with the so-called “Steam Box.” Valve chief executive officer Gabe Newell called it a “good, better, and best” model in his interview with The Verge.

The “good” solution involves streaming devices. Not something like OnLive or Netflix that streams the data from some centralized location out to your house, but something that streams the games from your gaming PC to your television. Nvidia revealed a graphics card called Grid that is capable of something like that at CES.

The “better” solution is the one that Valve will release. It has a dedicated CPU and GPU. It doesn’t have a physical-media player. It’s small and quiet. It runs Linux, it has its own controller, and Valve will sell it itself.  It is a lot like the Xi3 Piston.

The “best” solution is the craziest, most expensive rigs you can think of. They have all the bells an whistles. They run big, hot, and loud. They aren’t even really Steam Boxes.

Games-streaming service

OnLive

Price: $99.99
Release date: Available now
Website: Onlive.com

OnLive is still a thing.  In August, GamesBeat reported that OnLive went through restructuring that saw its assets sold to another company. It’s still operational, and users can still play games on the service.

For those that don’t remember, OnLive is Netflix for video games. Gamers can stream full console games, like BioShock or Saints Row: The Third, to their PC, tablet, phone, or television without any serious hardware.

For the television, OnLive released a microconsole that can zap the digital platform right to a television. It works surprisingly well, but it the occasional lag is enough to keep it from fully replacing a dedicated gaming system.

Turns out your phone is already a console

MHL cables

Price: $7.65
Release date: Available now
Website: Monoprice.com

The thing about the Ouya and the GameStick is that they’re just focusing on a feature that your Android smartphone is already completely capable of. The Ouya plugs into your television and is compatible with a physical controller. You can do that with a Nexus 4, Samsung Galaxy S III, or an HTC DNA.

MHL cables allow people to connect a phone to a television HDMI input. Then some Android apps allow players to use a PlayStation 3 or Wii controller to interact with games. It’s a cheap and easy solution that basically amounts to the same thing as Ouya.

Of course, Ouya may encourage more developers to produce controller friendly games, but those titles are compatible with standard Android phones.

Green Throttle Atlas Controller

Price: $44.95
Release date: Early spring 2013
Website: Store.GreenThrottle.com

Green Throttle takes the idea of MHL cables a step further. The company designed its Atlas controller to work with Android phones. It sells the controllers in bundles with the cables required to connect your smartphone to the television.

Green Throttle wants players to use their phones as a console and they want them to use the Atlas to interact with it. The company has its own proprietary digital-download store similar to Ouya and GameStick. With this device, your phone truly is almost no different from either of those dedicated consoles, and it is probably more powerful than at least the GameStick.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Premier game developer Valve shook the electronic entertainment world on Monday when it said that it had was working on its own open system console, which the press has dubbed the “Steam Box.” Rumors had been building for some time, creating huge excitement.

Gabe Newell, chief executive of Valve, acknowledged in an interview with The Verge that his company was working on the Steam Box and had invested in Xi3, which has a new gaming PC, called Piston, on display this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

We interviewed David Politis, chief marketing officer at Xi3, a maker of modular computers that can be used either as server computers, regular PCs, or gaming PCs. Piston can run either Linux or Windows.

To be clear, the Piston computer pictured is probably not the exact same thing as the Steam Box, which in pictures looks very different. However, Xi3 is able to pack a lot of firepower in this little device. That makes the Piston’s specifications and general size a proxy for whatever Valve finally ships. Newell said that the Steambox will run the Linux operating system.

Politis showed us an exclusive case (pictured at top) for the machine, which can be configured with any kind of design on its shell cover. We looked around but didn’t see any cases with the name Steam Box on them. But note the thematic similarity of the names “Piston” and “Valve.” Wink, wink. Politis acknowledged that Valve has invested in Xi3, but he said he couldn’t talk about a Steam Box and has a non-disclosure agreement with Valve.

At CES, Xi3 unveiled the 7A series game machine coming this spring.

The specifications

Piston packs a lot of muscle in a tiny space. It fits in a box no larger than the size of your hand. The device uses the Advanced Micro Devices “Trinity” combo platform which combines a microprocessor and graphics functions in the same chip.

The machine has a 3.2-gigahertz quad-core microprocessor and 384 programmable graphics cores. It comes with 8 gigabytes of DDR main memory. It can support three monitors natively and two mini display ports. It has four USB 3.0 ports, four eSATA ports, and four USB 2.0 ports. And it has 64 gigabytes to 1 terabyte of storage, depending on price. It has three programmable audio ports. The storage can transfer data at a speed of 12 gigabits a second at the high end.

The device can run 4K resolution video and graphics. Piston consumes only 40 watts, compared to 1,000 watts for some of the high-end game PCs.

“You can use this for gaming,” Politis. “To fit it inside this form factor took a little bit of magic.” The device has 13 patents granted and the company has applied for 1,000 more.

One of the most interesting aspects is its modularity. You can pull apart the chassis by removing four screws. You can then snap out the circuit board (above left) and replace the central processing unit. You can also wire multiple devices together in a server rack for high-end data center processing (pictured right).

But this machine isn’t going to be cheap. It will cost $999 — higher than its earlier Series 6 version that currently sells for $499. Politis said Piston will ship in March. Newell told The Verge that he wanted a machine that is quiet and without a big optical media drive. The Steam Box has to have low latency and be open. Newell described Windows 8 from Microsoft as “unusable.” He said that the Steam Box will run a regular web browser and be able to access services like Netflix via the web.

Check out our video interview with Politis.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Valve is working on a new set-top gaming system standard based on PC architecture dubbed “Steam Box,” according to a report published by website The Verge, A standout feature is rumored to be a controller that could provide real-time biometric feedback from the player to the game. For example, a shooter would be able to adjust the intensity of the action based on the player’s pulse rate.

[Update: Valve has dismissed the rumor]

The alleged baseline specifications for the Steam Box include 8GB of RAM, an Intel Core i7 CPU and an unspecified Nvidia graphics chip. Making use of current PC technology means the system could be compatible to thousands of existing Windows games. Valve has allegedly been talking to potential hardware partners – like Dell subsidiary Alienware – to manufacture the device. If true, the move would shake up console platforms and potentially position Valve as a major alternative hardware provider.

Valve has not commented yet on the report, which combines information from The Verge’s sources, recent remarks of Valve Managing Director Gabe Newell about the possibilities of entering the hardware business and a 2011 Valve patent filing for a customizable game controller technology.

Former Microsoft employees Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington founded privately-owned Valve in 1996. The company’s first product was the classic first-person shooter Half-Life, which also spawned the online phenomenon Counter-Strike. The company still publishes games, most recently Portal 2, and also operates the digital content distribution platform Steam. Since its launch in 2004, Steam has become the dominant online service for buying PC and Mac games and has over 35 million active user accounts, according to Valve. Electronic Arts launched the competing Origin platform in 2011.

Valve’s large number of existing Steam customers would make it a formidable competitor for the traditional game console makers Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony. But there are a number of reasons why we are not exactly convinced by the report’s rumors.

Historically, licensing game platform standards to third-party manufacturers hasn’t worked out. The system graveyard is filled with once hopefuls that never caught on. Rest in peace, 3DO, CD-i and Nuon.

In an era where the future of dedicated game consoles is questioned, exhuming the old ‘let’s put current PC technology into a box for the living room’ idea evokes unpleasant memories of The Phantom, a 2004 PC console announcement that never transformed into a finished product.

And who is really thrilled about the idea of playing with some sort of bracelet attached to send biometric feedback to a game console? Most living room dwellers don’t even want to be bothered with putting on glasses to make use of 3D TV sets.

According to The Verge, Valve has demonstrated a prototype of the Steam Box device to potential partners in January during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). It’s rumored the system could be revealed as early as the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, or be held back until June for the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).

We have reached out to Valve and will update upon hearing back.

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