News - Xi3 Piston Steam Box price set high at $1000, due Xmas 2013

[HEXUS]

But you can get a $100 discount if you pre-order before 17th March.

Read more.

[directhex]

I don't think Xi3 are expecting to sell many of these - a $1000 PC with a $100 processor is not "economies of scale" pricing.

[TheAnimus]

I'll be honest I didn't know these guys were in business still.

Underspecked hardware, overspecked price tag, if you question it your told it's 'design', their not Apple, they can't get away with it surely!

[aidanjt]

I don't think Xi3 are expecting to sell many of these - a $1000 PC with a $100 processor is not "economies of scale" pricing.

At that price they're ensuring it. Then again Xi3 has never been particularly price friendly.

[Bluecube]

I really hope that this isn't the sort of pricing that we can expect to see the Steam Box(es) come in at. I really do fancy a Steam Box but not at this price!

[cheesemp]

Wow - was expecting a cheaper cost for one of these. Guess i'll have to hope steam do a better job of pricing.

[bledd]

The case makes it look like a £30 product. Shocking design.

[brasco]

From the video - "Hardcore gaming... High performance computing..."

I'm trying not to scoff and sound condescending but with an A10-4600M it's not "High performance", it's great for it's size but it's just not going to live up to what they're touting it to be.

Do want to see the games it can run and hopefully I'll eat my words.

[jimbouk]

Take a laptop, remove the screen, increase price by 30%...

Ho hum, hopefully they'll sort themselves out soon, I was looking forward to this.

[Chadders87]

Hmm, a £10 CABLE will connect my PC to my TV. Thats 1% of the Pistons price. Alternatives are a WHDMI streaming kit for £250, thats still only 25% of the price of the Piston.

Shame, if this turns out to be the correct price at launch it will simply outprice me. My PC cost about the same price newly built with an i5 3570k and AMD HD 3770.. I have no intention of paying out AGAIN for much less performance.

Come on Valve, do something better or subsidise the core unit!

[nacasatu]

...and with a price tag like that, so ends the dream of a PC based Steam console. What a bunch of morons.

[Azazl187]

I think Steam are being a little over ambitious here

[directhex]

I think Steam are being a little over ambitious here

This is Xi3's offering, not Valve's.

[crossy]

Valve will approve more Steam Box hardware designs and will also be making an own-brand Steam Box console. Hopefully the official Steam Box and others yet to emerge will be more keenly priced to combat Sony, Microsoft and Apple’s attempts to dominate the living room.

If this DOES turn out to be the one and only official Steam Box then as far as I'm concerned Valve have lost all grip on reality and deserve to go into administration and be bought by EA (the most horrible of fates).

Ignoring the "funky" styling what's to stop me getting bits and throwing together a mini-ITX box that has a similar spec for less than half the price, and putting Ubuntu+Steam4Linux on it? Or buying a box from PC World etc - e.g. HP Pavilion like I bought last month - and dual booting Win8 with that Ubtunu+Steam combo. Again at a phenomenal amount less than Xi3 are charging.

And $100 off a ticket price of $1000 for pre-orders? Puhlease, that's so bad that it's hilarious.

Personally speaking, any Steam box that would retail for more than £400 isn't going to see a red cent of my gaming budget - especially as the home brewed hardware option is also available, affordable and just as capable. Heck, someone could surely make a living (cough, cough Scan XS?) from selling a similar box way below Xi3's Dick Turpin pricing?

Oh, and why do people keep saying that Apple's trying to take over the living room? Apart from Apple TV (or is it "iTV" now?) there's precious little I've seen - and even Apple TV's are exactly pushed hard in the PC World stores near me. No TV's with Apple TV built in, nor even an "iGame" console.

[NortyOne]

Well there goes that company lol. They seriously expect to hit the market of tech savvy people that don't want a traditional console with that cost?

Its a a quad 2.3Ghz trinity based processor with what i believe is a 7660 strapped in for what will be nearly £700 basic? that wont play Simcity much above above low settings lol. might play CoD etc. on medium ok though i suppose thinking about the apu match up. but for that price you could build a great gaming pc way out of its league, unless im really missing the point here?

just punch in AMD Radeon HD 7660G to google, hit the one that says notebookcheck.net.....scroll down, and enjoy.....should be able to run angry birds on ultra o_0 what a bargain

(ps though the pricing is dumb, we may have neglected the fact it isn't much longer than the average smart phone, the thing is very small)

[jnutt]

Ouch way too expensive