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Home News Xi3 Responds To Valve: Piston Is "Something More" Than Valve's Steam Box

GAMING NEWS

Xi3 Responds To Valve: Piston Is "Something More" Than Valve's Steam Box

Posted on Wednesday, March 13 @ 09:30:33 Eastern by Alex_Osborn


Just yesterday, Valve distanced itself from Xi3, claiming that the company has "no involvement" with the Piston. Xi3 didn't take to kindly to those comments and has since replied in a rather combative manner.

Jason A. Sullivan, Xi3's founder, president, and CEO, released a statement, making it perfectly clear that the device they created was designed"specifically for Valve" earlier this year at CES. He then went on the offensive, explaining why the Piston will be superior to whatever Valve releases.

We reaffirm the fact that we received an investment from Valve Corporation (as we previously disclosed during the 2013 International CES trade show), and we did so with Valve's written permission. Second, we were asked to build a product specifically for Valve, and both companies showcased this product - the Piston console - in their respective booths at CES 2013.

It's also important to note that the Piston console will allow gamers to access Steam regardless of what our relationship is or isn't with Valve. Additionally, Piston will also support a raft of other Internet-based gaming and entertainment platforms, which is more than what Valve apparently has planned for its official Steam Box. In this way, the Piston console could be perceived as something more than just a Steam Box, which makes sense because at its core the Piston console is a Modular Computer that can run any operating system or application designed to run on an x86-based 64-bit computer.

The gauntlet has been thrown. Let the Steam wars begin!
Tags:   Valve, steam box


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Comments
  • Jobin_Wendy
    Jobin_Wendy
    Joined: Mar 2012
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 9:59 am
    I can't help but feel Xi3 is making a mistake by being combative.
    0 5
  • MandaloreHunter
    MandaloreHunter
    Joined: Aug 2012
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 10:10 am
    Oh snap!
    0 1
  • cereal13killer
    cereal13killer
    Joined: Nov 2008
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 10:25 am
    I'm not sold. What are they offering for a $1000 that I can't get with a good PC for the same price (or less). If I want a console experience with what is essentially a computer, why am I not investing just $50.00 to buy a good PC controller instead?
    0 2
  • TheJx4
    TheJx4
    Joined: Jun 2011
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 6:39 pm
    It's portable.
    0 1
  • Mobius_Sean
    Mobius_Sean
    Joined: Sep 2006
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 10:46 am
    I spent $1500 and have an i7, GtX 670, 8G of RAM with Steam installed on Windows 7, hdmi output to my 60" Sharp. Does that mean I have a Steam AND a Piston already? Unfortunately I can't make the claim my SteamPiston will compete with the PS4. It runs CFD and FEA simulations and 3D Studio max when it's not conducting bombing runs on Karkand, leading the Prussian army to victory in 18th century Europe, and subjugating Feudal Japan beneath the banner House Nobunaga.
    0 3
  • DaVillain
    DaVillain
    Joined: Apr 2011
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 12:52 pm
    I have no interest
    0 0
  • moretokes
    moretokes
    Joined: Apr 2011
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 1:36 pm
    Who are these guys? Never heard of me before yesterday.
    0 0
  • Mobius_Sean
    Mobius_Sean
    Joined: Sep 2006
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 2:25 pm
    I come off too harsh on these pocket PCs but the truth is I honestly can't think if a way for them to justify their own existence, especially at a $1000 price point for Piston. My desktop is powerful, yes, but that's the least of the reasons I own it. Yes, it will play game genres that don't work on console, but again, that's not the point. The point of just "gaming", not playing with mods, not generating content, not all the engineering stuff I do for school, but just installing and running a piece of entertainment software on this machine and not my console is that in a few years when my GPU and RAM are obsolete, I can do a quick hot-swap and provided CPU requirements don't get out of hand, I'm back able to play the latest and greatest. I'm not talking overall cost, because my consoles easily win that battle. SteamBox and Piston are ostensibly miniaturized PCs with proprietary hardware.
    0 0
  • Mobius_Sean
    Mobius_Sean
    Joined: Sep 2006
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 2:30 pm
    (Wall o' text, shoulda made this a blog)

    Take upgradeability out of the equation for a PC and no matter how powerful, you end up with a technological snapshot of a particular point in time. "This is state of the art*" *circa October 2013. You can future proof all you want, but in the end you're headed toward obsolescence before you even release if you can't crack open the hardware and swap out guts, only now you're paying $1000 for the privilege. If that's going to be the case, I'll keep my perishable entertainment confined to a cheaper console.
    0 0
  • Ivory_Soul
    Ivory_Soul
    Joined: Nov 2005
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 2:27 pm
    Watch Valve bring the Steambox out at $300 as a big middle finger to Xi3.
    0 2
  • WILLS_COOL_MODE
    WILLS_COOL_MODE
    Joined: Oct 2010
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 2:28 pm
    "It's also important to note that the Piston console will allow gamers to access Steam regardless of what our relationship is or isn't with Valve."

    Phrasing such an untrue statement in such a douchey way is a surefire way to make people not like you.
    0 0
  • sliverstorm
    sliverstorm
    Joined: Jun 2007
    Posted: Mar 13th, 2013 at 3:28 pm
    That second paragraph is one of the worse public statements I've ever read. It's like the CEO of Xi3 JUST figured out what his own product was, wrote down his train of thought, and clicked send.

    "We're still a Steam Box. Only... we'll have more apps than Steam's Steam Box. So really, we're not a Steam Box at all! We're a console. And by console I mean Modular Computer... which I guess is just a computer.

    ...

    Jim! Get your ass in here, write this down, and email it to THE ENTIRE INTERNET."
    0 0
  • xDUMPWEEDx
    xDUMPWEEDx
    Joined: Jan 2012
    Posted: Mar 14th, 2013 at 2:21 pm
    Everyone boycott this idiot by not buying that ripoff. Xi3, you are a nobody.
    0 0
  • Unarmedshade
    Unarmedshade
    Joined: Mar 2013
    Posted: Mar 14th, 2013 at 11:21 pm
    If I were valve/steam and not bound by any legal aspect to allow xi3`s piston to steam. I would make sure to somehow prevent them from connecting and when they hack steam. (Which is what they would need to do to get steam access) Sue them for all their worth.
    0 0

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