While Xi3's Piston may only be a Steambox through its software optimization, that still leaves us with a milestone on our hands now that the system is available for pre-orders: it's the first Valve-blessed PC on sale. If you're willing to set aside just under $1,000 ($900 during SXSW), you can claim a Big Picture-friendly mini PC with an embedded, 3.2GHz version of AMD's quad-core A10 in addition to 8GB of RAM and a 128GB solid-state drive. There's no mention of the conventional spinning storage referenced at CES. Expansion is limited to larger-capacity SSDs, although that's not surprising when the entire computer is smaller than a GeForce GTX Titan. The real jolt will be the launch timing. Xi3 won't have Pistons shipping until around the holidays, which could leave some of us hunting for less-than-official (if considerably larger) substitutes for the full Steam experience.

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Via: Joystiq

Source: Xi3

We've known that game company and Steam operator Valve Software was going to offer prototypes of its hardware to Steam users for some time, but company head Gabe Newell niw says that those prototypes will start arriving in the next three to four months time. Moreover, beyond just the controllers we suspected to be part of the beta program, Newell tells the BBC that said prototypes will be of the Steambox, Valve's living room-friendly PC gaming initiative. "We're working with partners trying to nail down how fast we can make it," Newell said.

He cited noise and heat concerns as the holdup for retail availability of various Steamboxes -- both Valve itself and a variety of third-party companies are working on the initiative, including Xi3 and unnamed others. He also speculated about what control device might be included in various Steambox setups (the systems are said to range in power and price, from low to very high). He did posit that some form of biological monitoring would be built into a potential Valve game controller (biometrics). "You need to actually be able to directly measure how aroused the player is -- what their heart rate is, things like that -- in order to offer them a new experience each time they play," Newell said. He also cited the controller as a current roadblock in making the Steambox available. "The main thing that's holding us up right now is nailing ... we have a couple of different controller prototypes that we're using, and that's one of the things that we're giving to customers," he added. Valve is apparently planning on including a handful of controllers with Steambox prototypes in its upcoming beta, so that users can give feedback for each and Valve can break down how players are using them.

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Source: BBC

We're still eagerly awaiting Steambox-spec'd hardware in our living rooms but Valve's endeavor into hardware will move on minus one party member, noted inventor / hacker Jeri Ellsworth. She reported the firing in a tweet earlier today, however any reasons, future plans or possible link to the project itself were not mentioned. When we spoke to Ellsworth last fall, she was working on controller prototypes to address mouse/keyboard use from the couch. At the time she also happily noted the Valve corporate culture's acceptance of risk-taking and failure on the way to new product development. We've attempted to contact both parties and will report back if we hear any other details -- especially if they include any more fashion / Commodore 64 mashups.

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Source: Jeri Ellsworth (Twitter)

Ultra High Definition TV and -- surprisingly -- gaming took the spotlight at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Who'da thunk it? Certainly not me, Engadget's resident gaming dude. But here we are, with NVIDIA's first game console, Razer's modular PC rig, Valve's Steambox prototypes and Xi3's first example of third-party, Valve-backed Steambox hardware and, and ... maybe we're getting ahead of ourselves. Let's look back to January 3rd, before NVIDIA's press conference, before Razer's Project Fiona unveiling and before Valve surprised us with hardware prototypes. Those were simpler times -- times when Valve hadn't yet launched its multi-front attack on what we're still calling console gaming. It seemed unlikely that we'd see such a concerted effort to move PC games from the exclusionary world of desks and home offices into living rooms this early in the year. Yet, again, here we are.

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You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 7 days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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I lost a bet with myself at CES 2013. In the gaming preview we published ahead of this week's big show, I wrote, "As per usual, the games industry and CES are acquaintances at best -- at least from what we've heard thus far. Perhaps this will be the year that bucks the years-long trend, but we're not betting on it." Wrong. Wrong. But hey, this is one of those, "glad to be wrong" situations. NVIDIA shocked everyone with its first Tegra 4 device, Project Shield, which is essentially NVIDIA's first in-house dedicated gaming handheld. Not only does it play Android games, but more importantly, it streams full retail games from your NVIDIA GPU-based PC, all on its high-res 5-inch screen. Heck, it even has Steam's Big Picture Mode built right in, allowing you to explore Steam and purchase games, as well as push them directly to your television (employing Shield as your controller).

And then Valve's internal hardware prototypes popped up, confirming what we've heard murmurs of for months: the company's head down on creating a PC for your living room. Not exactly shocking, but certainly exciting; the plans are still nebulous, but Valve's confirmed we'll see hardware in 2013. We even saw some third-parties stepping up with their own versions of Valve's initiative. Xi3's Piston is the first such creation revealed, though the company's staying tight-lipped about specs -- we do know that Xi3's working directly with Valve on its tiny, modular PC. It's barely 2013, and already Valve's Steambox initiative is dominating gaming news. Let's call it right here -- this is the year that Valve attacks.

Gallery: Eyes-on with Valve's Steam Box prototypes

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There isn't a hardware standard for Valve's upcoming Steambox concept. While the goal of the initiative is to move PC gaming from the desk to the living room, that doesn't necessarily involve a single hardware standard or minimum spec, Valve hardware engineer Jeff Keyzer told Engadget in an interview this morning at CES 2013. "It's going to be different things for different people. We're interested in investigating an ecosystem of devices that don't necessarily have to share a common spec," Keyzer said. Nothing's set in stone, of course, and Valve's still very much in the exploratory phase of its Steambox push. "We're exploring the space, and trying to understand what the tradeoffs are and how that impacts the user experience -- what it's like to actually use this hardware and play games," he explained. Beyond specs, he pointed out that all the prototypes of Steambox on display at CES share one common feature: "they don't look totally out of place in a living room."

Keyzer and the hardware team at Valve certainly seem to understand the challenges ahead of them in 2013. In true Valve fashion, their approach to tackling those challenges lies in iteration and openness. "We're planning to be open and involve users, so I think over the coming year you'll hear from us, and it won't be this big secret. I really think that it's going to be quite open," Keyzer said. And there's that hardware beta we heard about last year, lest you forget.

Steam's Big Picture Mode -- a TV- and controller-friendly version of Valve's widely used digital gaming service -- is the first volley in Valve's big living room push. Keyzer pointed out that several devices already on the market are essentially doing what Valve hopes to do in the coming year with its own hardware. "There are a lot of computer manufacturers that are making computers like these now that you can buy presently and are supporting Big Picture," he said, referencing the three non-Valve PCs on display in the booth. "But we think that there's a lot of fertile ground for innovation and exploration in that area, so that's what we're doing," he added.

Gallery: Eyes-on with Valve's Steam Box prototypes

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You might say the day is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workday, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Daily Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past 24 hours -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.

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The Steamboxes are here! Well ... sort of. The prototypes for various Steambox designs are certainly here at CES 2013, and we just spent a grip of time acquainting our lenses very closely with them. The devices range in size and form factor, as well as origin -- several of the devices we saw originate from Valve internal, but inclusions like Alienware's X51 and Digital Storm's Bolt were also being held up as examples of the ongoing "Steam in your living room" initiative (note: all the controllers are off-the-shelf Logitech wireless devices, not prototypes). The idea here, as Valve hardware engineer Jeff Keyzer told us, was to show off a variety of form factors for living room-friendly designs. We'll have more from our meeting later today, but for now you can feast your eyes on the elegant prototypes -- as well as Xi3's Piston, and the aforementioned other two third-party PCs -- that we'll be sure to see more of as 2013 goes on.

Gallery: Eyes-on with Valve's Steam Box prototypes

Terrence O'Brien contributed to this report.

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When Valve hardware engineer Ben Krasnow gave a speech at a German technology conference back in December, he spoke to the much ballyhooed "Steambox" concept we've been hearing so much about in recent months (among other, vastly different subjects). Following that speech, a report on Golem.de (translated at the Neogaf gaming forums) posited that Krasnow indicated a reveal of said Steambox at this March's Game Developer's Conference, or perhaps at this June's E3 gaming trade show -- but Krasnow tells us he didn't say that exactly. "With regards to the Steambox news -- there has been a lot of things stated in the media which I didn't say. For example, it's true that we are working on getting Steam into the living room, and are planning for a hardware box, but we have no current plans to announce anything in 2013," Krasnow said in an email.

"The box might be linux-based, but it might not," he continued. "It's true that we are beta-testing Left for Dead 2 on Linux, and have also been public about Steam Big Picture Mode. We are also working on virtual and augmented reality hardware, and also have other hardware projects that have not been disclosed yet, but probably will be in 2013."

Valve also chimed in with a boilerplate statement, which explained the company's presence at this week's big consumer electronics show. "Yes, Valve will be at the show to meet with hardware and content developers in our booth space. Many PCs optimized for Steam and Big Picture will be shipping later this year. We are bringing some of these as well as some custom HW prototypes to our CES meetings." We saw one such example of a PC optimized for use with Steam's Big Picture Mode last night in Xi3's Piston modular PC -- the first of many of these setups we expect to see in 2013. Valve continued, "These custom prototypes are low-cost, high performance designs for the living room that also incorporate Steam and Big Picture. We will be sharing more information to the press and public in the coming months."

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Remember when Xi3 announced a Kickstarter project for its modular computers late last year? Well, those machines are here today at CES, thanks in no small part to some lofty backing from Valve. We got a first look at its latest mini-PC, code-named Piston, tonight -- and though a more comprehensive demo is to come, we walked away with some impressions nonetheless. Of course, Valve wouldn't back this system if it didn't have some serious graphics chops. It's optimized to run Valve's Steam platform -- and specifically Big Picture Mode -- and to that end it packs a quad-core AMD APU -- likely from AMD's Fusion series. Most other specs remain vague, though the Piston apparently offers up to 1TB of storage. The package is tiny yet rugged, with an aluminum chassis that's made to resist heat (and that will certainly come in handy during gaming sessions). Xi3 is also touting the system's low energy consumption; it runs on just 40W. And it's somewhat future-proof, too, with a modular motherboard that lets you swap out components when newer tech becomes available. Our hands-on gallery will have to tide you over till we get a full walkthrough at Xi3's booth tomorrow.

Gallery: Xi3 Piston Modular Computer hands-on

Joseph Volpe contributed to this report.

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Valve has been making a visibly deep push into the living room, but in bits and pieces -- controllers here, Big Picture interfaces there. Company chief Gabe Newell may have just hinted at a more holistic, though non-exclusive, approach in the works. Chatting on the sidelines of the Video Game Awards, he tells Kotaku that any Valve hardware would involve a "turnkey solution" with a "very controlled" environment, not unlike a console. While that's not necessarily the confirmation of the rumored Steam Box, Newell only stokes the speculation further through his eagerness to put Big Picture on Steam for Linux and get that much more control when building hardware. The game developer doesn't see his company monopolizing couch-based devices should it get involved, however -- he predicts more companies will be selling PCs in 2013 tailored for the TV in a way that would favor Steam. We won't consider either a Valve-made gaming box or its third-party equivalents to be imminent based solely on award show banter, but the remarks suggest that at least one of the PCs is more than just a dream.

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Source: Kotaku

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