Remember the Xi3 Piston? It was described as a tiny computer no bigger than a softball that was meant to run Valve’s Steam platform. It’s still going to release, and it’s still going to have a lot of its original functionality. So if anyone wants a “Steam Box” for Christmas, they can pick up the Piston on November 29, good-old Black Friday. Anyone who pre-ordered the console prior to the SXSW 2013 Gaming Expo will be receiving it on November 15, allowing them to stay indoors safely away from the Black Friday horde.
The Piston was originally going to partner with Steam in order to bring the Steam platform to living rooms. While Valve was doing “exploratory work” with the Piston in 2012, it later announced that it no longer has any involvement with the company. Valve recently announced Steam Machines , its own version of the Steam Box compaitable with the SteamOS , so you could look at the Piston as a suitable third-party alternative.
The basic specs of the Piston include:
- 8GB Ram
- 128 GB Solid State Drive Expandable to hold 1TB via two 512 GB Solid State Drive
- 3.2 GHz AMD Trinity Processor
- Radeon 7000 Series GPU
The game will come preloaded with an as-of-yet unannounced lineup of games.