Initial pre-orders for Xi3’s Steam supported living room PCÂ begun at the South By Southwest Gaming Expo this week, and are now available on the official website. Pre-orders made before March 17th will receive a $100 discount. The box is the first of two designed around facilitating the Steam experience on the couch, Valve’s own “living room PC” is still confirmed by studio head Gabe Newell for launch sometime in the future.
The Piston has 8gb RAM, a 3.2 Quad Core (R464) processor. The standard machine retails at a solid $1000, and comes with a 128gb internal SSD. For an extra $340, you can upgrade to an internal 256gb SSD, or to a 512gb SSD for $750.
The Piston will ship in the 2013 holiday season, but Xi3 founder and president Jason A. Sullivan has warned of a potential inability to meet initial supply requests. “Given the amount of awards, media attention and gamer interest the Piston console has generated since it was unveiled at CES 2013 in January, we’ve become seriously concerned that we will not be able to meet the demand for Piston consoles this year”.
(via CVG)
Report filed by Thomas Coutts