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Piston Xi3 "Steam Box" on sale for $1000 and up

Third-party console challenger to sell for a high price

The Valve-backed Xi3 Piston console will retail for $1000 and up, with a likely release date of this Christmas.

The Xi3 Piston was unveiled at CES earlier this year as the first "Steam Box" hardware from a third-party - ostensibly a PC running Linux, but one designed to run Valve's Steam Big Picture Mode on a television for a seamless, console-like experience.

Valve is working on its own Steam Box, though that hardware is still a several months away from user-testing.

When the Piston hardware was unveiled at CES, Digital Foundry expressed doubts over its ability to find a place in the market: "It represents the 'consolification' of a platform which is traditionally associated with massive performance gains over the dedicated games machines, but is looking decidedly sub-par compared to the hardware that is to come. Instead unique appeal lies into its ultra-tiny form factor."

To read Rob Fahey's recent editorial about the Steam Box concept, follow the link.

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Matthew Handrahan

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Matthew Handrahan joined GamesIndustry in 2011, bringing long-form feature-writing experience to the team as well as a deep understanding of the video game development business. He previously spent more than five years at award-winning magazine gamesTM.

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