Following Valve's official trifecta of news announcements, a less than official leaked information may be what would get a lot of Valve fans even more hyped up.

After the leaked trademark for Half-Life 3 was seen for Europe filed by Casalonga & Associés via the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market, people already started jumping up and down. Half-Life 3 may be one of the winning games that can set the mood for the new Steam Gaming System and put it at a very good position in dedicated gaming.

But now, Ars Technica reports that Half-Life 3 is basically confirmed. Citing a NeoGAF source, the report found that Valve's internal bug tracker had went public and it confirmed Half-Life 3 and even Left 4 Dead 3 as upcoming Valve games.

This is potentially the most official that it has ever been when it comes to the rumours of Half-Life 3 being in production. The timing could not be more perfect, what with Valve gearing up for its new gaming system consisting of the SteamOS, Steam Machines, and the Steam Controller.

Could this mean that Half-Life 3 will be a launch title? A 2014 launch for both the game and the gaming system would certainly excite fans--and maybe even challenge the two rivaling giants in the console wars.

Perhaps what happened before was sort of a calm before the storm, only in this case, it's a perfect storm of announcements that bring in the next generation of gaming and the next wave of for Half-Life fans.

Disbelievers already at Valve's heels?

Valve's three-part announcement is just starting to sink in for some people, and yet already, a rival is failing to see the potential behind Valve's promise.

Trevor Longino, head of PR and Marketing at gog.com, spoke with The Independent about how he thinks Valve's SteamOS, Steam Machines, and Steam Controller will fare in the gaming battle that will reach its climax before the year ends.

"I don't think it will pose a threat to services like [us]. Gamers will likely to continue to play PC games on a traditional PC simply because that's the hardware they own. I believe gamers who are very strongly attached to playing games on TV probably already have consoles," said Longino to The Independent.

"Barring a killer app such as the Halo franchise war for Xbox or the Uncharted series for PS3, I don't see how Steam Machines are going to grab a big portion of the market from other consoles."

Granted, the main criticism of the Steam Gaming System is that it is a Linux-based concept, and compared to its Mac and Windows counterpart, Linux still has a long way to go in establishing itself in digital distribution.

Still, one point that can easily overturn this assumption is the freshly rumoured Half-Life 3, which after a long silence and many contradicting information, has finally started to gain more solid traction.

"I wish the guys at Valve the best but given what I know at the moment and what I suspect from looking at the data, it looks less like this is a move to threaten platforms like us and more like it's a move to shake up console gaming like Valve did for the PC market."

Sony sees the SteamOS as a potential rival

On the other hand, Sony, responsible for the giant PS4, seems to be taking all precaution despite the popularity of its next-gen console.

Speaking with CVG, Fergal Gara of Sony UK has stated that SteamOS and the Steam Machines can be a contender for the battle of the living room gaming experience. However, the giant is still pretty confident of its position in the console wars, considering that it is reported to be the favored console over the Xbox One for the holiday season.

For the meantime, Valve's announcements regarding the Steam gaming system have been very vague at best, with no distributors, gaming titles, developers, or hardware partners having been name-dropped as of yet.

But kudos to Sony for keeping their confidence in the PS4 at bay, and with half a mind to see the contenders' potential--nothing wrong with overestimating possible rivals, right?

"We can't afford to ignore it," said Gara to CVG. "Steam is arguably the pre-eminent digital download service for gaming. So we'll watch it."

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