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Home News Possible Steam Box Design Outed, And It's Unsurprisingly Slick

GAMING NEWS

Possible Steam Box Design Outed, And It's Unsurprisingly Slick

Posted on Tuesday, January 8 @ 09:28:10 Eastern by Jonathan_Leack

Is this the Steam Box?

The small device pictured above has been designed by Xi3 and was built purposefully to run games in Steam's Big Picture Mode. Incidentally, Valve has a partnership with Xi3, and despite its small size, it has specs that should intimidate current-gen consoles. Known as the Piston, a quad-core processor, 8GB of memory, solid state storage, and even multi-display support have been thrown on its spec sheet, although that's unlikely to be its final build.

The Piston is on the show floor at CES 2013 which raises some questions as to whether or not this is really the Steam Box. As questionable as it is, its small shape and high-level of processing power would be perfect for Valve's quest to make Steam games playable on the go. Valve and Xi3 have declined to share any more details on the subject.

The Steam Box was recently confirmed to have a 2013 release date with details coming soon. Stay tuned to find out if this is what we really think it is.
Tags:   steam, Valve


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Comments
  • Fieperskaivu
    Fieperskaivu
    Joined: May 2011
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 9:55 am
    As long as I could resist the temptation to see if it would roll down a ramp, looks pretty slick and powerful!
    0 2
  • wildmario
    wildmario
    Joined: Jan 2007
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 11:12 am
    I guess the Steam Box is good if your PC is having issues or there's other problems that is preventing you from running your games fully, but yeah it seems this is more designed for taking your Steam games elsewhere with consistent hardware. Dedicated PC gamers that don't really travel wouldn't need this.
    0 2
  • Sourdeez
    Sourdeez
    Joined: Feb 2012
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
    I have a feeling its mostly for novice users who dont like to have to set things up themselves. They like to just press the on button and things be auto configured(Nvidia is working on there own "Geforce Experience" to do something similar though.)

    My question is will your games on the steam box translate to your pc steam library.
    0 1
  • wildmario
    wildmario
    Joined: Jan 2007
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 1:01 pm
    I guess you could call the Steam Box a console since that's what it's acting like in a sense.

    And I don't see any reason why games on the box wouldn't let you play them on your PC either. They did that for Portal 2 between Steam and PS3.
    0 1
  • Sourdeez
    Sourdeez
    Joined: Feb 2012
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 1:06 pm
    I have a feeling its mostly for novice users who dont like to have to set things up themselves. They like to just press the on button and things be auto configured(Nvidia is working on there own "Geforce Experience" to do something similar though.)

    My question is will your games on the steam box translate to your pc steam library.
    0 1
  • xDUMPWEEDx
    xDUMPWEEDx
    Joined: Jan 2012
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 12:30 pm
    I just hope the rumored prices aren't even remotely close to what the final cost is going to be. If this is anywhere between 500-1000 it will be a massive failure. The absolute top end I see being feasible is $399
    0 2
  • Sourdeez
    Sourdeez
    Joined: Feb 2012
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 12:55 pm
    I disagree. $500 is reasonable for powerful hardware. Plus people know they will be getting awesome steam sales on games. They wont be shelling out $60 for each game.

    The ps3 launched its 20gb at $500 and its 60gb at $600

    The new xbox is going to launch at a lower price than last time but that is because microsoft is selling it with 2 year xbox live contracts to discount the price.
    0 1
  • xDUMPWEEDx
    xDUMPWEEDx
    Joined: Jan 2012
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 1:10 pm
    The PS3 launching at that price was a mistake. People aren't going to drop $500 on this thing. The Vita is half that price and has Sony brand recognition and it can't even sell. Hardcore PC gamers already have gaming PCs. Casuals won't be dropping 500 on this box. Fact.
    0 3
  • Chunibrow
    Chunibrow
    Joined: Mar 2010
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 2:08 pm
    Dumpy speaks the truth. It's common knowledge the PS3s launch price severely damaged its initial sales, and that's a console that succeeded the most popular and successful console of all time - so many people were ready for the PS3. This is something that has the opposite appeal - niche appeal - and anyone who is not 100% certain they want it will not spend $500 on something that they just might be interested in. And as it has been mentioned, the crowd this seems to be aimed at will most likely know they don't want it since they have computers that do it already.
    0 1
  • drathbone
    drathbone
    Joined: May 2011
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 5:58 pm
    It's reasonable for powerful hardware but the market already has powerful hardware. It's like me going out and buying a white xbox360 when my slim is dong just fine.

    I think this is more going to be an entry point for people hesitent to build or buy a gaming rig or possibly as a gadget to tote while traveling instead of hauling the desktop around. $500 is too much for that and as stated already has proven to not work well.
    0 0
  • Sourdeez
    Sourdeez
    Joined: Feb 2012
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 8:17 pm
    I disagree with your comparison. Its used wrongly. This is going to try to compete with the consoles not really with Full pc rigs. We also don't know full hardware specs for it yet or for the new consoles. The price I will agree is a debatable topic.
    0 0
  • wallyvonrai
    wallyvonrai
    Joined: Oct 2006
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 12:33 pm
    piston, ..... means pissbarrel when reading it in my language hoping for steam that it doesnt turn out as something like that.
    0 3
  • Jonathan_Leack
    Jonathan_Leack
    Joined: Jan 2012
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 3:07 pm
    In my language it means 'pissed in'.
    0 2
  • drathbone
    drathbone
    Joined: May 2011
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 5:54 pm
    In my language it means pissed on.
    0 2
  • wallyvonrai
    wallyvonrai
    Joined: Oct 2006
    Posted: Jan 9th, 2013 at 10:11 am
    Not really the best name for something to put on the market worldwide, now is it? You would expect them to look into that sort of stuff. : p
    0 0
  • Sourdeez
    Sourdeez
    Joined: Feb 2012
    Posted: Jan 8th, 2013 at 2:53 pm
    Thumbs Up for everyone!
    0 2
  • omega711
    omega711
    Joined: Aug 2012
    Posted: Jan 9th, 2013 at 8:55 am
    it's a console that plays pc games... thus not a console, it's just a very small pc/frag box. that being said i may still buy it :-P
    0 0

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