Steam Box: Valve's partnerships for Big Picture gaming

The company behind massively popular cloud-based gaming service Steam is pushing its way into the living room with a run of "Steam Box" console-sized computers that deliver computer games to your television.

While the initiative is centered around the idea of producing console-like computers for the living room, they won't all look the same. Valve officials came to CES this year to meet with a variety of hardware companies and content providers to get them to create their own versions of the Steam-centric gaming rigs.

The first officially announced venture, Xi3's Piston, made a splash during the international show's opening. Stay tuned as we continue to chart the evolution of a software company, to a service provider, to a living room entertainment platform creator.