Xi3 Corporation has announced that its Piston Console will start at $999.99 and arrive during the Holiday 2013 season. According to Kotaku, this “unofficial” Steam Box is being partially financed by Valve. Curiously, the “Valve” and “Steam” brands aren’t mentioned in the Piston Console’s press release. The system is available for pre-order with a $100 discount that’s good until March 17, 2013 at 11:59PM CST.
The pre-order page shows that the Piston Console packs an AMD R464 quad-core processor listed at 3.2GHz, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD. A 256GB SSD can be added for an additional $340 while a 512GB SSD can be added for an additional $750. According to CPU World, the AMD R464 has a standard frequency of 2.3GHz and a “Turbo” frequency of 3.2GHz.
I know that RPadholic smartguy is anxious for a Steam Box. Are any of you interested in Xi3’s Piston Console? Will you take advantage of the pre-order savings? Or are you going to wait for more choices? What do you think of the Piston Console’s looks and price?
I’d need more info about the internals before I’d jump on one of those. My PC could use some newer parts so I’ll keep my eye on this. I’d prefer an intel chipset for a 1k machine though.
SSDs run for about $1 per GB, why are they charging $750. Even if it has to have some bullshit loaded to make it work, seriouslty $250 seems a bit much.
The short answer is…because they can! I’d be curious to see the system’s internals. Hopefully it isn’t a big deal for people to install their own SSDs.
I was kinda interested in the Steam Box as well, but the more I hear about it the less I think its aimed at me, someone who only games on a PC.
The motherboard isn’t necessarily one board in this device which leads me to think that all of the pieces are custom and therefore the price is increased.
Soldered SSD is something I totally didn’t think about. That possibility really makes me want to see the inside of the box.
I’m holding out on this one. The design is nice and the specs are too, but being an unofficial steam box and running windows are huge negatives. Valve is supposedly making their own official console, and I’m hoping to wait out on that one. Having a console on the market that runs steam can be a huge game changer for the industry. Especially given Steam’s buy it once policy. Unfortunately, this is still just another PC.
Why do you hate Windows? It’s a useful OS and will play all types of games without emulation. A sandbox for gamers.
I like Win7, which I am currently using, but Win8 is unwanted and undesired by me. With the exception of DirectX, there is no good reason to upgrade to Win8 and Piston is running Win8.