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Valve shows off 'game console' hardware at CES
- nthitz 14y agoMore pictures and info here: http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/7/3849284/piston-valve-steam-box-xi3 http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/7/3849284/piston-valve-steam-b... 8 USB ports? Ha wow.
- vyrotek 14y agoI also found this article interesting as well. It shows them arranged in a server configuration. http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/12/2702994/xi3-modular-computer-tand3m-microserv3r-server-rack-hands-on http://www.theverge.com/2012/1/12/2702994/xi3-modular-comput...
- kyrra 14y agoI got to see some intel test boards at one point. They tend to put the max number of ports possible during development to make sure the CPU and bus all behave properly. Adding ports after being in dev is really error prone. Removing ports tend to be easier.
- wilhil 14y agoNot just test boards - most motherboards nowadays have at least 12 USB ports in total, just people hardly use all the headers in their machines.
- IsTom 14y ago4 keyboards and 4 mice. Image projector not included.
- stock_toaster 14y agopossibly for controllers?
- anonymfus 14y agoFor comparison, latest versions of Xbox 360, PS3, Wii and Wii U have 5, 2, 2 and 4 USB ports respectively.
- kristofferR 14y agoIt looks absolutely beautiful. It seems like it's going to be really expensive compared to regular consoles though.
- arriu 14y agoI think the next set of consoles are going to be a little more expensive than the current generation. At launch, the PS3 was $499 in the US.
- kristofferR 14y agoSure, but this one costs $999 unless Valve subsidizes it massively according to this article: http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/7/3849284/piston-valve-steam-box-xi3 http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/7/3849284/piston-valve-steam-b...
- arriu 14y agoXi3 also offers the entry level X5A, which is priced at $499
- slyn 14y agoMost consoles sell at a loss, that is the price for a profit, including the cost of windows (while steambox will be linux), and at a manufacturing scale that is probably 1/500th or less of what Valve will be contracting. Not to mention that may very well not be "the" steambox, as apparently Valve has said they will have multiple prototypes from multiple manufacturers.
- nuclear_eclipse 14y agoAnd there were plenty of us who gladly paid $599 for the launch PS3 with the bigger hard drive that also included PS2 backward compatibility...
- BHSPitMonkey 14y agoIt looks a bit like a fancy cheese grater to me, but to each their own.
- arriu 14y agoI wonder how large the power brick will be compared to the size of the console.
- zachrose 14y ago"The Xi3 splits the core computer functions into three separate, replaceable components--one for the processor, one for external communications and one for video and power management." http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220782# http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220782#
- CisSovereign 14y agoInteresting they left 'Portal' off of Valves most noted games.
- zyb09 14y agoWas there ever an actual statement from Valve on this? All I see is a company called Xi3 showing of their computer, while making some vague remarks about having received an investment from Valve - whatever that means. Not to doubt it, but if this is really "the thing", I'd like to hear some actual conformation.
- nthitz 14y agoHere's some sort of confirmation from a "Valve Official" http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/8/3850952/valve-meeting-with-hardware-and-content-developers-at-ces-piston-one http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/8/3850952/valve-meeting-with-h...
- roc 14y agoThe PRWire article [1] is somewhat vague on that point, but it does clearly claim that Xi3 received funding from Valve, and that Valve would have a unit at their CES booth as well. [2] [1] http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/xi3-and-valve-to-unveil-new-product-at-ces-2013---an-xi3-development-stage-computer-game-system-optimized-for-steam-gameplay-in-big-picture-mode-185945182.html http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/xi3-and-valve-to-unv... [2] Does Valve often have a booth CES?
- rthomas6 14y agoIt's called a Piston. That's not any sort of confirmation, but it makes it plausible to me that it will be the Steam box.
- alttab 14y agoSo you'd imagine it would be some sort of steam powered piston. Oh, I see what they did there.
- hkmurakami 14y agoAnd "Valve" is the one letting the steam flow into the piston :)
- ebbv 14y agoThere's no mention in these articles about the most important thing; what kind of GPU is in these if any? If they rely on the HD4000 included in an i3/i5 CPU then they're going to make for really shitty gaming consoles.
- ajross 14y agoNot really. Throughput specwise HD4000 a little better than a XBox 360 or PS3 and way out in front of the Wii. Those are the competing consoles. It's true that it's well behind the discrete GPUs (and frankly no integrated on-SoC solution will ever compete with a separate chip with its own memory bus!). But it will compete in the existing console market just fine, technically. It's not really clear if extra 3D rendering performance in the console market is really needed; people who want that are already in the PC market anyway.
- archagon 14y agoA PC video card with the same specs as a console video card will perform significantly slower. Console games are optimized on a very low, platform-specific level, which simply isn't feasible on PC. (Not to mention, console ports often have much poorer performance in general.) The HD4000 is actually pretty good for an integrated card and runs a lot of older games well, but it won't run many modern games even on low settings. I speak from experience on this. For some reason, if your PC is underspecced in the gaphics department, even going down to 640x480 and setting all the graphics settings to low won't make most modern games playable. I don't know why this is the case.
- georgemcbay 14y agoThe Steam "box" is unlikely to be treated as much like a true console by developers when it comes to hitting the metal because Valve is still very much committed to the PC market and their public statements about TV gaming suggest they see themselves as only one of many providers for the "Steam on TV" experience. Unlike a "true" console, they are likely to define a chipset-neutral minimal spec for games, which means the development model will be more PC-like than console-like.
- phormula 14y agoyou can already have the Steam console experience in your living room if you hook up a computer to your tv. so buying this console wont even be a requirement, if it happens to be underpowered http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture/ http://store.steampowered.com/bigpicture/
- DannoHung 14y agoSo this thing is going to be really underpowered compared to a mid-range ($500 or so) gaming rig, right?
- shmerl 14y agoAs long as games released for this console would be regular Linux games runnable on the PC as well, it wouldn't be too bad. But in general old beaten console vs PC gaming arguments stay in place. Console market degrades games quality (interfaces and performance wise), which backfires to PC gaming scene with crippled console versions being adapted for PC by developers with minimal changes, instead of creating normal and rich PC interfaces for games from the beginning.