Xi3 Piston was the first device which was revealed when Valve shared that they were about to make the jump into the world of hardware, although it must be noted that the Xi3 Piston is far from being a Steam Machine simply because “if you can play it on a computer you should be able to play it on a Piston”. That’s that then, and Xi3 CMO David Politis also shared, “We believe, and I think the market’s very clear about this, that the biggest concentration today is in the Windows marketplace. “We’re still friends. We still love Valve, we love Steam. “We’ve gone separate directions today – that doesn’t mean we’re not supporting Valve. They’ve got 50+ million users on Steam. Why wouldn’t you support them?
The thing is, they are also looking at EA and Origin, and Politis mentioned, “In fact, we believe that if you can play it on a computer you should be able to play it on a Piston – and that’s our whole viewpoint.” The Xi3 Piston was released in November last year for $999 a pop, and while it is not modular that does away with the ability to upgrade its components, it does open up the doors for Linux installs in addition to Windows and a custom environment. Now that Valve’s hardware plans have already made an appearance, the company decided to plot a slightly different route and stopped themselves from using the “SteamBox” name, but rather, opted for Steam Machines.
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