Valve and Xi3's 'Steam Box'

[REDMAFIA]

I think Gabe has lost it. He claims Win 8 is detrimental to PC gaming so his solution is to come up with this and run linux on it. But what's more detrimental to PC gaming Win 8 or Gabe trying to force the end user into using Linux. Linux sucks for home use.

[EChondo]

The "Piston" is not the Steambox. The Piston is one of Xi3's machines, but it is NOT the Steambox that Valve will be developing/creating.

The Piston is most likely an idea that Valve wants to use, but it is nowhere near the size of the real product. The link I attached below has prototype pictures of a "Steambox".

[5k3l3t0r]

I like the idea, that they are thinking about the future of gaming. I remember in school we were talking the Phantom game console, where everything would be upgradeable, even the motherboard, where you would get a hard drive or so to play the actual games. The problem with this idea and game consoles is that you can't upgrade any the hardware. "Hello, Apple"... Well, pretty much any of the game console we have on the market. This idea is more for those who don't have anymore for a PC.

[bradscoolio]

I'm thinking it might be a possibility that valve will become a vendor for steam box specific graphics cards. That way they can manufacture cards based on current gpu architecture in weird form-factors to fit inside their small "steam box", then newer games will run better on newer graphics cards making the gaming industry keep up with current hardware and also providing profit long term.

Imagine having a console that never goes out of date because it's to slow, ^ well there is your solution.

[bradscoolio]

I'm thinking it might be a possibility that valve will become a vendor for steam box specific graphics cards. That way they can manufacture cards based on current gpu architecture in weird form-factors to fit inside their small "steam box", then newer games will run better on newer graphics cards making the gaming industry keep up with current hardware and also providing profit long term.

Imagine having a console that never goes out of date because it's to slow, ^ well there is your solution.

you'd just have to do a simple upgrade :) and then tada! you have a brand new machine 1 year down the road that could do everything the latest model could do

[fishymamba]

I wonder how much it will cost. They can't expect to sell that many for $1K

[cxz]

Hopefully same servers. I always wanted that with my xbox, but I guess their could be advantages and disadvantages for both. Either way depending on the price this steambox could be good or terrible. 1k is more than my pc and I play everything I have on max no problem.

[Ningeal]

Will it play on PC servers? Or will it have its own dedicated servers and lobbies.

It will probably run on PC servers. It's still a tiny PC afterall, hmm?

[gamer tom]

I think this move would really push Linux gaming, something I'm looking forward to.

[Konn]

I don't see the point of it being so small, doesn't that just increase price?

[-ism]

The major weakness of this is purely that it's running GNU/Linux, and a locked down version of that I assume (wouldn't it basically be locked to Steam big picture mode?)

Simply you won't have near the same library that a Windows platform would have

Sure, Steam Linux is in beta and it has some games running fine, but there's no way developers are going to port all their old library of games from DirectX to

OpenGL, and even new releases, I don't see many developers switching the tried and true methods of using DirectX and completely going the opposite direction and using OpenGL

Look at the selection of games available for Mac right now, that's pretty much the amount of selection that's going to be available on any Linux system, highly doubt many AAA titles will be coming at all

It's a novelty idea, but I don't see it being a competitor for desktop PC's in the slightest, and because of the lack of game titles and high price point I can't see it crushing consoles either

Lack of up-gradable hardware is also a negative, but I guess if it's marketed towards casual gamers who don't want a desktop PC, then you have to keep it simple. I imagine this thing gets TOASTY as well, and I guess we're going to be seeing framerates of basically a maximum of 70fps at 1080p

This isn't the Steambox people were hyping up and imagining, and I don't think we'll ever see it. The Steambox everyone wants is just a damn desktop PC

I'm quite sure in an interview with Gabe Newell I read on The Verge he said that it wouldn't be too hard to install Windows on it if you wanted.

[Alterlai]

Yea i'm really glad that valve is trying to move some of the console crowd to the pc side.

Hopefully this will stop the late releases on pc as resault of more audience of the pc platform.

[EChondo]

I don't see the point of it being so small' date=' doesn't that just increase price?[/quote']

The "Piston" is not the Steambox. The Piston is one of Xi3's machines' date=' but it is NOT the Steambox that Valve will be developing/creating. The Piston is most likely an idea that Valve wants to use, but it is nowhere near the size of the real product. The link I attached below has prototype pictures of a "Steambox".[/quote']

Again guys, since this has been brought back up, the Piston is NOT THE STEAMBOX. The Piston is Xi3's machines they have ALREADY built. Valve is creating their own type of Steambox and might use a vendor, like Xi3, to construct a Steambox of their own.

The Piston is NOT the Steambox.

[Gamas]

Where are all the hardware components supposed to be ?

And why only the CPU & RAM , the GPU is the most important component in gaming and is the most frequent hardware upgrade.

I have read that it uses an AMD APU, therefore a CPU upgrade will also upgrade the GPU so it would be both parts upgraded in one operation :)