Most Recent: PC

The “Steam Box” wars have begun.

While Valve’s official Steam Box likely won’t be in stores until 2014, Xi3 has announced that their version of the PC-based console, the Piston, will be available this holiday season for a price of $999.99. Does a thousand bucks sound a bit steep for a “console”? Well, Xi3 actually agrees with you and will slash the price to $899.99 if you pre-order it between now and Sunday, March 17.

“Clearly, the computer/video gaming market is huge, both in the personal computer and traditional console markets,” said Jason A. Sullivan, President and CEO of Xi3. “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.”

The standard Piston console will include a 128GB SSD hard drive, but additonal models will be available that include a 256GB SSD ($1,339.99) or a 512GB SSD ($1,749.99).

Famous games designer (and creator of the modern RPG) Richard Garriott, best known for the Ulima franchise, as well as the ill-fated Tabula Rasa, is returning to the game development fold, and is looking for a little help from fans. His new game, Shroud of the Avatar, was announced on Friday by Garriott’s new studio, Portalarium. Based in Austin, Texas, the developer’s announcement was timed to coincide with the first day of the city’s SXSW Gaming Festival. With Shroud of the Avatar, Garriott is aiming to provide gamers with “the keys to an ultimate role-playing experience.”

“These important tenets include things like a fully interactive virtual world, deep original fiction with ethical parables such that players’ choices are relevant, cultural histories and fully developed alternative languages and text. Also we want our players to have physical game components like cloth maps, fictional manuals and trinkets. These are all things that people came to expect in my earlier works and we plan on bringing them all back to create Shroud of the Avatar.”

In order to fund his new title, Garriott has launched a Kickstarter campaign under his alias, Lord British. In the video, Garriott explains that he feels modern RPGs coddle players too much, and hopes to set them free to do as they wish with Shroud of the Avatar.

As of this writing, the project is almost halfway to its $1 million target, with 29 days still to go. So it would be safe to assume we will be seeing Shroud of the Avatar on the PC very soon.