Hands on with Board, the $700 video board game console aimed at PlayStation fans

The $700 tabletop console — a massive, polished 24-inch touchscreen designed to sit flat on a table — doesn’t fit neatly into any existing gaming product category. It isn’t a do-everything open-ecosystem PC competitor or a tightly walled-off novelty device. It can’t replace a PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X as a AAA platform, and it’s hard to imagine how it ever could. Instead, the Board experience is built around touchscreen gaming that utilizes bespoke physical pieces and prioritizes face-to-face play. On a home consumer level, there wasn’t much like it, which meant the first order of business for Putnam’s team of puzzlemakers and businessfolk was to imagine the possibilities.