Hasta La Gadget!

While Xi3’s Piston may only be a Steambox through its software optimization, that still leaves us with a milestone on our hands now that the system is available for pre-orders: it’s the first Valve-blessed PC on sale. If you’re willing to set aside just under $1,000 ($900 during SXSW), you can claim a Big Picture-friendly mini PC with an embedded, 3.2GHz version of AMD’s quad-core A10 in addition to 8GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive. There’s no mention of the conventional spinning storage referenced at CES. Expansion is limited to larger-capacity SSDs, although that’s not surprising when the entire computer is smaller than a GeForce GTX Titan. The real jolt will be the launch timing. Xi3 won’t have Pistons shipping until around the holidays, which could leave some of us hunting for less-than-official (if considerably larger) substitutes for the full Steam experience.

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Via: Joystiq

Source: Xi3

I lost a bet with myself at CES 2013. In the gaming preview we published ahead of this week’s big show, I wrote, “As per usual, the games industry and CES are acquaintances at best — at least from what we’ve heard thus far. Perhaps this will be the year that bucks the years-long trend, but we’re not betting on it.” Wrong. Wrong. But hey, this is one of those, “glad to be wrong” situations. NVIDIA shocked everyone with its first Tegra 4 device, Project Shield, which is essentially NVIDIA’s first in-house dedicated gaming handheld. Not only does it play Android games, but more importantly, it streams full retail games from your NVIDIA GPU-based PC, all on its high-res 5-inch screen. Heck, it even has Steam’s Big Picture Mode built right in, allowing you to explore Steam and purchase games, as well as push them directly to your television (employing Shield as your controller).

And then Valve’s internal hardware prototypes popped up, confirming what we’ve heard murmurs of for months: the company’s head down on creating a PC for your living room. Not exactly shocking, but certainly exciting; the plans are still nebulous, but Valve’s confirmed we’ll see hardware in 2013. We even saw some third-parties stepping up with their own versions of Valve’s initiative. Xi3’s Piston is the first such creation revealed, though the company’s staying tight-lipped about specs — we do know that Xi3’s working directly with Valve on its tiny, modular PC. It’s barely 2013, and already Valve’s Steambox initiative is dominating gaming news. Let’s call it right here — this is the year that Valve attacks.

Continue reading 2013: The year that Valve attacks

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When Valve hardware engineer Ben Krasnow gave a speech at a German technology conference back in December, he spoke to the much ballyhooed “Steambox” concept we’ve been hearing so much about in recent months (among other, vastly different subjects). Following that speech, a report on Golem.de (translated at the Neogaf gaming forums) posited that Krasnow indicated a reveal of said Steambox at this March’s Game Developer’s Conference, or perhaps at this June’s E3 gaming trade show — but Krasnow tells us he didn’t say that exactly. “With regards to the Steambox news — there has been a lot of things stated in the media which I didn’t say. For example, it’s true that we are working on getting Steam into the living room, and are planning for a hardware box, but we have no current plans to announce anything in 2013,” Krasnow said in an email.

“The box might be linux-based, but it might not,” he continued. “It’s true that we are beta-testing Left for Dead 2 on Linux, and have also been public about Steam Big Picture Mode. We are also working on virtual and augmented reality hardware, and also have other hardware projects that have not been disclosed yet, but probably will be in 2013.”

Valve also chimed in with a boilerplate statement, which explained the company’s presence at this week’s big consumer electronics show. “Yes, Valve will be at the show to meet with hardware and content developers in our booth space. Many PCs optimized for Steam and Big Picture will be shipping later this year. We are bringing some of these as well as some custom HW prototypes to our CES meetings.” We saw one such example of a PC optimized for use with Steam’s Big Picture Mode last night in Xi3’s Piston modular PC — the first of many of these setups we expect to see in 2013. Valve continued, “These custom prototypes are low-cost, high performance designs for the living room that also incorporate Steam and Big Picture. We will be sharing more information to the press and public in the coming months.”

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Remember when Xi3 announced a Kickstarter project for its modular computers late last year? Well, those machines are here today at CES, thanks in no small part to some lofty backing from Valve. We got a first look at its latest mini-PC, code-named Piston, tonight — and though a more comprehensive demo is to come, we walked away with some impressions nonetheless. Of course, Valve wouldn’t back this system if it didn’t have some serious graphics chops. It’s optimized to run Valve’s Steam platform — and specifically big-picture mode — and to that end it packs a quad-core chip. Most specs remain vague, though the Piston apparently offers up to 1TB of storage. The package is tiny yet rugged, with an aluminum chassis that’s made to resist heat (and that will certainly come in handy during gaming sessions). Xi3 is also touting the system’s low energy consumption; it runs on just 40W. And it’s somewhat future-proof, too, with a modular motherboard that lets you swap out components when newer tech becomes available. Our hands-on gallery will have to tide you over till we get a full walkthrough at Xi3’s booth tomorrow.

Joseph Volpe contributed to this report.

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Xi3 has been one of the more inventive PC builders in the field, designing its Modular Computers in the belief that small, more upgradable desktops are the way of the future. The company is planning two new systems to further that dream, the X3A and X7A, but it wants our help: it’s running a Kickstarter funding drive until October 28th to assist the development and garner some early adopters. Put down $503 or $603 and you’ll get the entry-level X3A, a dual-core 1.65GHz (likely AMD E-450-based) PC with 4GB of RAM, a 32GB SSD and either Linux or Windows installed; splurge with $1,103 or more and you’ll get the more performance-driven X7A, which jumps to a quad-core chip with a 3.2GHz peak speed, a Windows-loaded 64GB SSD and faster graphics. Assuming Xi3 makes its target, we should see the X3A and X7A arrive in January and February respectively, with Kickstarter supporters beating the larger herd by a week. Even existing owners are accounted for through a Primary I/O Board upgrade, due before the end of this year, that carries more Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports. Crowdfunding is an unusual approach to buying that next PC, without the certainties of shopping at an online store — but we’re also dealing with an unusual PC from the get-go.

Continue reading Xi3 goes the crowdfunding route for future X3A, X7A modular PCs (video)

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Xi3 goes the crowdfunding route for future X3A, X7A modular PCs (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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