The more I hear about the upcoming "steambox" the more I'm liking the sound of it. Small form PC for the front room, operating from linux, running Steam's "Big Room", it could be a serious contender to the next generation of consoles.
Latest announcements include there being three tiers of machine - a base one at around $99, which does little more than stream stuff from your pc; a mid-range one for around $300, which is more like a traditional console but with much more flexibility; and then the top tier which can include whatever your budget allows.
The mid-range machine is quoted as having a quad core 64-bit processor, 8GB of DDR3 RAM, a 1TB SSD, support for 3 displays, 6 USB 2.0 ports and 2 eSATA ports, requiring just 40W of power to run.
Now I'm not tech savvy but a small form factor computer with all that inside it, with a semi-established platform like Steam Big Picture out of the box, all for less than £300 sounds fantastic.
I've said in the past that I have little brand loyalty, and could quite easily switch my loyalties from Microsoft to Sony if Sony's next machine looks a better option to me than Microsoft's - but it now seems we have a serious rival bidding for my money...