Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Piston Steam Machine News Expected Monday

By - Source: Xi3 Corporation Press Release | B 26 comments

Ladies and gents, it looks as if we have our first official Steam Machine.

Hot on the heels of Valve releasing its Steam Machines initiative, Xi3 Corporation revealed on Friday that it plans to talk more about the Piston "console" on Monday at 1pm EST / 10am PST. A call in to the company produced no results, but we were directed to past talk about how owners will be able to play their Steam games on the device. We couldn't get a confirmation, but it looks as though Piston will be Steam Machine material after all.

The Xi3 Piston is a modular computer, and according to the product sheet, comprises of a 3.2 GHz AMD Trinity quad-core chip, Radeon 7000 Series graphics, 8 GB of DDR3 RAM and a 128 GB SSD. The device likely still comprises of three components: the processor board, the primary I/O board, and the secondary I/O board. Thus instead of having to replace the entire unit, Piston owners can rip out the processor board and slip in a new one. Pure awesome.

We first previewed the Piston back in January during CES 2013, and were impressed on how easy it will be to upgrade the device on a whim. That's the approach Valve has wanted to take all along from what we understand, and we were sure the Piston would be the flagship device during the show. Reports of a "distancing" between the two surfaced two months later, indicating that the Piston was not the official Steam Box. We're betting that Piston will be one of the many prototype units offered in Valve's Steam Machines beta plan next month.

The Piston unit can be pre-purchased now for a meaty $999.99 USD, and that's likely without an operating system – at least, a Windows operating system. We're betting this device will ship with Valve's free-to-use SteamOS already installed, thus all gamers need to do is plug it into an HDTV and load up their games. With a super lightweight OS and a super-fast SSD, their favorite Steam-based titles on the PC should be even better on this Linux-based system (if the game is available, that is).

"This new development stage product will allow users to take full-advantage of their large high-definition TV displays for an amazing computer game experience," said Jason A. Sullivan, founder, President and CEO of Xi3 back in January. "As a result, this new system could provide access to thousands of gaming titles through an integrated system that exceeds the capabilities of leading game consoles, but can fit in the palm of your hand."

Just this week Valve Software revealed its SteamOS platform, its Steam Machines initiative, and a new Steam controller. The company said that other hardware manufacturers would reveal their Steam Machines solutions, and Xi3's solution appears to be the first. We expect to see Valve reveal several tiers of Steam Machines, from low-end devices focused on streaming games from an already-available Kepler-based PC gaming rigs (think Shield), to extremely high-end, complete solutions.

Check back here on Monday for more Piston news.

All the SteamOS, Steambox, Steam Machine, Steam Controller news so far:

Discuss
Ask a Category Expert

Create a new thread in the News comments forum about this subject

Example: Notebook, Android, SSD hard drive

This thread is closed for comments
Top Comments
  • 18 Hide
    MANOFKRYPTONAK , September 27, 2013 4:56 PM
    I would never pay a thousand dollars for that... There is just no way. One could build a mini atx pc with better performance for a grand. But I like the concept and would love to see consoles do the same some day.
Other Comments
  • 18 Hide
    MANOFKRYPTONAK , September 27, 2013 4:56 PM
    I would never pay a thousand dollars for that... There is just no way. One could build a mini atx pc with better performance for a grand. But I like the concept and would love to see consoles do the same some day.
  • 0 Hide
    MANOFKRYPTONAK , September 27, 2013 5:08 PM
    I would never pay a thousand dollars for that... There is just no way. One could build a mini atx pc with better performance for a grand. But I like the concept and would love to see consoles do the same some day.
  • Display all 26 comments.
  • 8 Hide
    michael908 , September 27, 2013 5:36 PM
    Overpriced for what it is.
  • 0 Hide
    lpedraja2002 , September 27, 2013 6:04 PM
    I still believe this product has no place in the market, it is horribly priced and underpower to even be considered a steam gaming machine. This is just an AMD APU in the smallest form factor available but so what!? A thousand dollars for just a small for factor is ridiculous. I hope this doesn't meet the steam box requirement because if it does Valve are already screwed given the number of systems that can be called steam boxes will create the same problem of hardware variety that we suffer from PC gaming today, which in turn means less optimization for more powerful systems.
  • 2 Hide
    joaompp , September 27, 2013 7:27 PM
    They just want to capture the idiots before the real steam box is announced, valve will probably release something in the $500 range, or at least it better if it wants to complete with consoles
  • 8 Hide
    shikamaru31789 , September 27, 2013 8:14 PM
    Far too expensive for it's specs. I'm hoping some manufacturer will make a Steam Machine with specs comparable to the Xbox One and PS4 for around the same price. If not, I see little reason to choose a Steam Machine over one of the consoles.
  • 1 Hide
    masmotors , September 27, 2013 9:08 PM
    it needss more power and be cheaper i say 599.99 the most
  • -2 Hide
    masmotors , September 27, 2013 9:09 PM
    it needss more power and be cheaper i say 599.99 the most
  • 4 Hide
    Shaun o , September 27, 2013 9:11 PM
    AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor Integrated HD 7660D Graphics £100.

    Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD128BW) £110

    Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Kit £70

    (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £60

    Sub GCTotal= £340

    That would leave about £500 or more for a top of the line
    7990 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card.

    Total =£840.

    What direction would you take ?


  • -2 Hide
    masmotors , September 27, 2013 9:13 PM
    it needss more power and be cheaper i say 599.99 the most
  • 0 Hide
    Frogstyle , September 27, 2013 9:46 PM
    a new OS to get out of Microsoft's store grasp would have been more than enough... they are pushing it too far.
    the only selling point they have is " better frame rates " well for that price ill get Xbox One and ps4 on Christmas.
  • 0 Hide
    ojas , September 27, 2013 10:40 PM
    Um, everyone should maybe chill out a bit? Valve said there would be multiple prototypes, and it seems more likely that there will be different tiers. Xi3 could just be one of the models, and that's likely how it is.

    So calm your underwear, everyone.
  • 0 Hide
    ojas , September 27, 2013 10:41 PM
    And quoting Tech Report, it's not a Steam "console", it's a Steam PC.
  • 2 Hide
    back_by_demand , September 27, 2013 11:30 PM
    The size and shape of that case tells me swappable parts would be proprietary - meaning expensive - I could buy a slimline HTPC for less, using off-the-shelf parts and the only specialised part would be a low-profile graphics. Lets hope the pre-order price is a gross exaggeration and the actual price is around half this.
  • 3 Hide
    m32 , September 27, 2013 11:39 PM
    This is capitalism at its finest. $300 parts that you can sell for a $1000.
  • 3 Hide
    cobra5000 , September 28, 2013 12:40 AM
    $999? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! You have GOT to be kidding me! Who would ever buy such a thing? It should be $99 and they make their money in games. Just hook up your PC to your TV and do this FOR FREE! Talk about a waste of money.
  • -1 Hide
    cobra5000 , September 28, 2013 12:42 AM
    $999? Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha! You have GOT to be kidding me! Who would ever buy such a thing? It should be $99 and they make their money in games. Just hook up your PC to your TV and do this FOR FREE! Talk about a waste of money.
  • 0 Hide
    Vorador2 , September 28, 2013 2:27 AM
    That thing it's worth about 300$ give or take. I'm not paying a markup of 699$ just for the Steam certification.
  • -1 Hide
    bemused_fred , September 28, 2013 2:48 AM
    Quote:
    AMD A10-5800K Black Edition 3.80GHz (Socket FM2) APU Trinity Quad Core Processor Integrated HD 7660D Graphics £100.

    Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD128BW) £110

    Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Kit £70

    (Socket FM2) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £60

    Sub GCTotal= £340

    That would leave about £500 or more for a top of the line
    7990 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card.

    Total =£840.

    What direction would you take ?




    That's a nice bottleneck you've got there....
  • 0 Hide
    ferooxidan , September 28, 2013 3:37 AM
    how about the new BRIX from GIGABYTE? i think it is better
Display more comments