Xi3 Piston pre-orders open, user interface shown

The Xi3 Piston, better known as one of Valve's first Steam Boxes, had its user interface shown off at SXSW this weekend, just as pre-orders opened.

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The Xi3 Piston was shown off at SXSW this weekend, with the presentation revealing the user interface for the customized PC box. At the same time, pre-orders opened for the basic unit at just under $1,000.

Polygon reports that the PC menu is customizable, letting users select the colors of options and which programs launch when they're selected. For example, launching "Gaming" went to Steam, while "Music" opened Spotify. Among the other options were TV, Communication, Computer, Home Automation, Streaming Games, Streaming TV, Streaming Movies, and Streaming Music.

The Xi3 Piston pre-order page is currently open. The device starts at $999 ordinarily, with extra SSD space available for $340 (256GB) or $750 (512GB). The base price has been reduced to $899 through the duration of SXSW. The event lasts until March 17, so you have roughly a week left to order at a discount.

The Xi3 was announced as one of the first so-called Steam Boxes in conjunction with third-party manufacturers, but Valve is planning to make its own Linux-based hardware as well.

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    March 11, 2013 9:00 AM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Xi3 Piston pre-orders open, user interface shown.

    The Xi3 Piston, better known as one of Valve's first Steam Boxes, had its user interface shown off at SXSW this weekend, just as pre-orders opened.

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      March 11, 2013 10:39 AM

      the only thing thats going to make me want to buy one of these is if i get gpu specs please and ty

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      March 11, 2013 10:45 AM

      Too expensive for what it provides, unfortunately.

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        March 11, 2013 11:03 AM

        Agreed, if it was ~$600 and had some solid marketing behind it I could see these doing well but at that price it's going to be a tough sale.

        Also I'm not sure why they decided on that form factor? I mean I'm all for making things smaller, but that thing is freakin TINY. It's not necessary to be anywhere near that small and if it's going to significantly increase the price then by all means I say make it larger.

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          March 11, 2013 11:58 AM

          As small as it is it's not really that much smaller than an ITX box which would be cheaper and likely more powerful.

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      March 11, 2013 11:04 AM

      "one of Valve's first Steam Boxes" - so we expect to see other vendors putting out steam boxes as well, it's not just going to be something valve branded?

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        March 11, 2013 11:05 AM

        i just need to learn to read these articles to the end ...

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      March 11, 2013 11:08 AM

      That thing seemed to be having a rough time with Tomb Raider.

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      March 11, 2013 11:11 AM

      [deleted]

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      March 11, 2013 11:13 AM

      hard sell. $1,000 can almost buy a solid gaming machine and console.

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      March 11, 2013 2:37 PM

      It's cool that its small and all, but I just threw together a bitfenix prodigy mini Itx build on newegg w a fucking 660ti in it for 900. That integrated chip can't be more powerful than an i5 3570k + 660. Can't be.

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      March 11, 2013 4:17 PM

      What's the operating system on this?

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      March 11, 2013 6:01 PM

      Ugh, Valve is letting shit like this completely cloud the market in terms of what they are planning for these devices, what the *real* price point will be, etc.

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        March 11, 2013 6:06 PM

        hehe "CLOUD" the market nice

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        March 11, 2013 7:34 PM

        Valve probably doesn't care what hardware as long as you are using the steam ecosystem. Same thing with other platforms like Amazon's Kindle and Google's Android. I am pretty sure we won't mistake this for the reference device Valve will probably release in a year or two.

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