Valve and Xi3 show off "Piston" Steam Box prototype at CES

Ugh, this is a bit of a let down. The price needs to be a lot less, considering what this is: slightly-better-than-console-level graphics, with controller-only games.

Also what's with the form factor? Everyone needs to cut this out! We all have home theatre systems - how does a ridiculous box like that fit in anywhere??

You know... The more I look at this thing, the more I'm convinced that it's the love child of a one night stand between a gaming laptop and an OUYA...

OR you can just build you're own PC... It will be better, cost less, and be way more customizable. Sorry but this wanna be HTPC has 0 interest for me and I don't see it being more than a cool toy for a very specific person. I love my PC and would never personally consider getting this for gaming, business, or anything really, just my 2 cents.

The video says that the cheapest is around $500, which is for basic computing. If they keep the gaming one under $1000 and it delivers on the performance front then they could market "the hell" out it and will sell decently. With it needing only 20W to run, we can have a winner by the end of the year.

How does 20W deliver on the performance front? With today's tech, it literally CAN'T.

Guys stop! You've all been completely misinformed, for example read this alternate article here: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/01/steam-linux-console-gets-detailed-at-ces

This is just a mini pc offering from Xi3 with steam maybe installed(you can have that on any pc really). But for crying out loud.! They don't even know what os to put on it yet! And TSpot jumped right to some valve cooperation, not clever.

Im guessing they will call thier OS "Engine" then!

I know a lot of you are saying you should just buy your own rig and link it up to your TV. But I think what you are forgetting is that a large portion of the population simply has no idea about building or setting up an all in entertainment pc. Even worse than that most people just want a setup that they can just plug in and go. This is what the Piston is aimed at. Its a nice mini system that can be connected up to your tv - like a console - and just played with minimal fuss.

I would be interested in buying a system like this, but then I'm lazy.

This looks quite interesting and I'm wondering how it will pan out. The older Xi3 systems have AMD/Intel options and Windows/Linux (OpenSUSE) options. Xi3.com is currently down, most likely a DDOS due to current popularity. I'd like to see what module upgrade options they have and what they cost. Could you start out with the sub $500 and upgrade over time to the high end system one module at a time and how much more would it cost then buying the high end system out right?

Good Point.

They say it runs todays latest games.. which games have they tested? Can we see benchmarks?

I don't see how something that small can be modular. Standard sized graphics cards aren't going to fit in there. Are they going to have to make custom PCB graphics cards for it?

They'll probably run them at some hideous resolution with no AA or detail at all.

After watching the video, I'm a little confused.

How the hell can you squeeze any kind of performance into 20W?!

Seems impossible.

There are many ridiculous/dumbfounded comments on this article. Any comment about 'I can build a PC for less money' that person should have a CAT scan. Of course you can, this is a specialized design using Mini-ITx or M-ITx.
All the comments about Steam in relation to games show that people just comment and don't actually read and comprehend what they are looking at.
This Xi3 has many great uses I can see already, as I work in the medical industry. For example, this would easily bolt to the back of our Medcarts and use little power which is great because these carts take '12V 26AH Genesis EP Non Spillable - Sealed Lead Alpha Source' batteries and they are not cheap to replace.
Normally I don't pay to much attention to stuff like this unless it is pretty groundbreaking due to the overwhelming amount of newer mini computers and Mini-ITX (m-ITX) based designs, but this one is quite interesting, and I can see it having succees.
Use some common sense, obviously the 20watt thing is probably for idle or basic data execution and tasks, a game or demanding app will surely use more but that is still impressive.

Well, I guess the fact that Valve stepped in financially to take up the slack when the Xi3's Kickstarter attempt didn't quite pan out makes no difference then? Fact is, this is a small PC, backed (in part) by Valve, supports Steam, is being shown off at the CES show actually running Steam... Nothing said in this Techspot article was wrong or misleading, those are all well-documented facts.

The fact that you are calling all of us misinformed is the very definition of ironic.

Wish List Mode ON!

If the purpose is to mainstream PC gaming for the living room then the price, no matter how spectacular the specs, is going to have to come down.

If "Piston" costs anywhere near $900, what's was the point. You can buy a Mac Mini and put Windows on it for ~ $700, and have basically the same thing. You'd probably have better performance with Intel HD Graphics 4000 than an AMD APU. Hopefully Steams version will come with a dedicated graphics card so you can run games at decent settings.

Hopefully all that's on the system is a steam client (OS) and the games, so the hardware isn't bogged down by a windows OS or apps. I wish steam had just made their own OS that ran all their games, so anyone can install it and build their own dedicated gaming machine.

Would be nice of the Xi3.com website was up and running to get some information!

Still my biggest problem isnt with the 500$ "basic computing" unit, thats on par with a normal cheap desktop that can do the basics.

My beef is with the 1000$ "gaming" version, I'm sorry but AMD's FX APU series is good but the graphics on those are "entry level" AT BEST.
They tout all this nonsense about modular designs that will last you 7 years but their modules currently has the video/cpu/chipset all on one card. So basically the only purpose the other modules serve is IO's. This is hardly any different from a normal micro-atx system that actually has a PCI-E slot for a proper video card that can be upgraded.

I just don't see this as a viable "gaming" solution unless you only plan to play games 4 years old or more on it.