Valve: Piston is only one of multiple hardware prototypes.

[Hadrian]

Let's just get this straight, Piston is only Valve BACKED...its not made by Valve, it's just backed by Valve. It's not "The SteamBox" or Valve's Official console, it's a 3rd party piece of hardware.

Further on from the showing of the "Piston" from Xi3, Valve's own Doug Lombardi has also just stated that this won't be the only Valve backed hardware:

"Valve will be at CES to meet with hardware and content developers in our booth space. We are bringing multiple custom (hardware) prototypes as well as some off-the-shelf PCs to our CES meetings... We will be sharing more information to the press and public in the coming months

He also stated that this hardware would be:

low-cost, high-performance designs for the living room that are great candidates for Steam and Big Picture.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/8/385...ware-and-content-developers-at-ces-piston-one

 

[FAST6191]

IBM PCsteambox clone coming to a living room near you?

 

[Hadrian]

Just wait until the Chinese get hold of this...

 

[Taleweaver]

Thanks for mentioning that.

I kinda wondered why all the articles put "VALVE!!!!" in their title whereas all the videos themselves show no mentioning of them anywhere.

 

[lufere7]

Meaning "piston" will probably run windows right? That means much less compatibility issues although that and just being "backed" by valve will probably mean a high price tag.

 

[Rydian]

Just wait until the Chinese get hold of this...

100% Legit Genuine Intel-PC CPUprocessor (no returns to Intel accepted)
2GB of RAM (in base-2).
2GB Storage (1GB used by built-in emulators).
etc.

 

[nukeboy95]

pre order gift of half life 3 anyone?

 

[Hadrian]

Meaning "piston" will probably run windows right?

They plan to have it running Linux, I guess to cheapen the price as having it run with Windows would cost them though users can run Windows on it if they wish.

There's a interview with Gabe about their plans here:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3852144/gabe-newell-interview-steam-box-future-of-gaming

 

[Rydian]

Yeah that'd add like, $75-100 to the price, and then they'd have an extremely hard time locking it down without doing all sorts of modifications/replacements that might not even be possible or done well (shell replacements for Windows tend to suck, etc.)

I mean imagine if you could take a 360, hit CTRL+ALT+ESCAPE, and shit like that.

 

[Veho]

Yeah that'd add like, $75-100 to the price, and then they'd have an extremely hard time locking it down without doing all sorts of modifications/replacements that might not even be possible or done well (shell replacements for Windows tend to suck, etc.)

But forcing a custom OS would cripple the library. They would be shooting themselves in the foot.

 

[Rydian]

But forcing a custom OS would cripple the library. They would be shooting themselves in the foot.

They've ported Steam to Linux and some games, and there's always WINE options for authors that don't want to port their game to be available. Custom WINE packages per-game are possible (and already used for the OSX version of WINE), just like how Nintendo packages custom emulators per-game for Wiiware.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

The Verge had a pretty large interview with Newell over the "Steam Box".

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/8/3852144/gabe-newell-interview-steam-box-future-of-gaming

There will be multiple Steam Boxes from multiple companies and even though it runs on Linux, you can install Windows or some other OS if you wish.

 

[Gahars]

There will be multiple Steam Boxes from multiple companies and even though it runs on Linux, you can install Windows or some other OS if you wish.

That's good to hear. I'm glad to know Valve won't be Steam Boxed in anytime soon.

 

[Rizsparky]

Interesting, this may nudge me back into PC gaming..