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Old 01-07-2013, 11:49 PM   #1
deoxys
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STEAM BOX UNVEILED, NINTENDO IS FINISHED

HOLY SHIT DO YOU SEE THIS SHIT





That's right, it's the MOTHER FUCKING Steambox.

GABEN HIMSELF has been SHITTING THESE OUT for the past year in secret, which is why he has lost so much weight recently.

Quote:
The "Steam Box" modular computer announced by hardware maker Xi3 and Valve at CES is codenamed "Piston" and is modeled after the PC maker's X7A line of pint-sized computers, Xi3 reps tell Polygon.

Xi3 brought an early version of Piston to CES, but was tight lipped on details about the hardware currently in development with Valve. Xi3 chief marketing officer David Politis told Polygon that Piston will offer up to 1 TB of interal storage and offer modular component updates, including the option to upgrade the PC's CPU and RAM.
edit: Here's a FIRST LOOK at the startup screen

BORKED

GODDAMN, NINTENDO, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING

IS THE Wii U THE NEXT DREAMCAST???!??!??!?!?!!!!!??

Quote:
Xi3 wouldn't discuss price for Piston, but commented that the Steam Box is based on its "performance level" X7A offering, which is priced at $999. Xi3 declined to comment on what would differentiate Piston hardware-wise from a standard X7A.

Xi3 also offers the entry level X5A, which is priced at $499 with a Linux operating system.
Quote:
which is priced at $999.
Quote:
priced at $999.
Quote:
$999.

Last edited by deoxys; 01-07-2013 at 11:58 PM.
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Old 01-07-2013, 11:57 PM   #2
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Too much money. They had real promise but that's ridiculously overpriced. How is that supposed to compete with consoles OR PCs?
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Old 01-07-2013, 11:59 PM   #3
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Well we don't KNOW that that will be it's actual price, but the matter of the fact is that this is based on their $999 model, so it's pretty safe to assume it will go for no less than $799, I'd imagine.
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:00 AM   #4
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That still seems insanely high priced to me. The only people who would be saving money on that are hardcore PC gamers who don't need it.
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:09 AM   #5
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Why would Joe Schmo shell out a G for something that plays pretty much only games when he can get a PC that plays games just fine and does other things like email and word processing and photoshop for cheaper?

It seems ridiculous to price it that high relying just on the fact that it is Steam-powered.
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:14 AM   #6
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In fairness to Valve, the device picture is not their actual Steambox, but just a different computer part that their hardware contractor made, I think. We don't know what the actual price is, just what that small company sells it for.
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:24 AM   #7
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But that is the device Valve is showing at their booth at CES. They simply are working with Xi3 to make and market it.

It's the Steambox.
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:30 AM   #8
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Considering that "part" is filled with a ton of interface ports, I doubt it's just a part.

Honestly, $799 isn't ENTIRELY out of a gamer's budget. Didn't the PS3 have a launch price of $599? Sure it's high, but with inflation and such, it's not entirely unlikely to end up with a price that high.

Will it be worthwhile? I don't know. I doubt it. But since when has gaming been about squeezing every penny?
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:31 AM   #9
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Am I the only person reading Deoxys's opening post as an obvious troll? Why are you guys responding so seriously?
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:34 AM   #10
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If they brought it down to $499, I might consider it. The point of the Steambox was to be a high end PC in the form of a console for gamers on a budget - at least, so I thought. For this price, you can still build an actual PC for even cheaper that would be just as powerful.
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:34 AM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Talon87 View Post
Am I the only person reading Deoxys's opening post as an obvious troll? Why are you guys responding so seriously?
Talon... It was an homage to Blastoise.
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:42 AM   #12
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Allow me to rephrase ...

I find it pretty hard to believe that this news story is real, for all of the reasons already expressed in this thread and then some. I realize Michael "I used to work for Kotaku" McWhorter is supposedly the one who wrote the article, but still. It just seems ridiculous to me that a company as clever as Valve would have made such a colossal miscalculation about gamers' feelings about acceptable and unacceptable console prices. $400 is still unacceptably high, even when we're long since familiar with Sony's initial misstep of $600 for the PS3 at launch. To propose a $1000 launch price is, frankly, retarded, particularly when that sort of money can easily buy you the parts necessary to turn any post-2010 desktop computer into a gaming force to be reckoned with for the next four years.

And it is precisely because I give Valve more credit than this that I actually question the news story's veracity before questioning Valve's sanity.
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:50 AM   #13
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ok fine pick your poison

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/01/07/valve-pc-steam-box/

http://www.pcgamer.com/2013/01/08/co...rdware-at-ces/

http://www.slashgear.com/xi3-introdu...alve-07263885/

http://www.siliconera.com/2013/01/07...3-corporation/

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/01/...ar-at-ces-2013

My biggest worry is market oversaturation in 2013, what with this, the fucking Ouya, Wii U, PS4, Xbox Infinity, GameStick, etc

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Old 01-08-2013, 12:52 AM   #14
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I can sort of see the purpose if it's a PC that you can have in your living room without a lot of fuss (probably a lot more compact than a standard issue tower unless you deliberately went out of your way to build a mini-sized TV PC box). Things I'm iffy on:

-Supposedly running on Linux TO STICK IT TO THE MAN (okay not really, but still), which means like 99% of Steam's catalog will probably be running in a Windows emulator

-The price, although that's going to depend on whether Microsoft and Sony learned their lesson on pricing last time (rational logic says hopefully, corporate logic means probably not)
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Old 01-08-2013, 12:52 AM   #15
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I thought it was more of a portable gaming PC rather than a budget gaming PC. I mean look at the size of that thing. It's like just over the size of the guy's fist.

With a decent budget rig usually costing about $500, if the Steam Box is looking to be budget, it really needs to drive down the price.

Edit: Dammit Reed!

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Old 01-08-2013, 07:08 PM   #16
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Here is a very interesting interview with Gaben about Steam Box which came out today.

What I picked up from this is that the steam box shown at the beginning of this post is only one of many. At least, like I said, that is the impression this interview gives me. He says Valve will be producing it's own Steam Box hardware and he mentioned that there were two different types they are personally using internally, one "Bigfoot" and one "Littlefoot". So the Xi3 Steam Box we see in my first post? It was backed by Valve and even given money to help develop it, but it doesn't appear to be the steam box as we were led to first believe. He also mentions it will come pre-packaged with Linux, but it will be possible to install Windows if you wanted to.

This changes things quite a bit. He sounds very knowledgeable in this interview and seems to know exactly what he's talking about... I like this bit myself:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gabe Newell
The internet is super smart. If you do something that is cool, that's actually worth people's time, then they'll adopt it. If you do something that's not cool and sucks, you can spend as many marketing dollars as you want, [they] just won't.
And to top it off, here is a picture of the protoype Valve Steambox:

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Old 01-08-2013, 08:57 PM   #17
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To reinforce my last post:

http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/8/3850...ces-piston-one

Quote:
"Valve will be at CES to meet with hardware and content developers in our booth space," Lombardi said. "We are bringing multiple custom (hardware) prototypes as well as some off-the-shelf PCs to our CES meetings."

Lombardi described the prototypes as "low-cost, high-performance designs for the living room that are great candidates for Steam and Big Picture.
So those of us who were disturbed by the earlier news can breathe a sigh of relief.
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Old 01-09-2013, 12:42 AM   #18
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One thing to consider is that when one invests in a PC, it's not exactly the same as a single generation console, the tech and support should last over the lifetime of several generations. Not all games are designed for current, state-of-the-art PCs and Valve is a good testament to that. Plus, PCs have support for lots of old games too, so one isn't locked out of stuff from decades prior.

That said, I have no concept of price for consoles so I can't really join in the uproar.

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The point of the Steambox was to be a high end PC in the form of a console for gamers on a budget - at least, so I thought. For this price, you can still build an actual PC for even cheaper that would be just as powerful.
Budget and "high end" don't really agree with one another. Consoles are inferior tech to PCs, and are uni-functional. They should be cheaper, and that's offset by the ridiculous price of the games purchased for them.
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Old 01-09-2013, 12:55 AM   #19
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Originally Posted by Doppleganger View Post
One thing to consider is that when one invests in a PC, it's not exactly the same as a single generation console, the tech and support should last over the lifetime of several generations. Not all games are designed for current, state-of-the-art PCs and Valve is a good testament to that. Plus, PCs have support for lots of old games too, so one isn't locked out of stuff from decades prior.

That said, I have no concept of price for consoles so I can't really join in the uproar.
In 2000, the PS2 launched at a retail price of $299. In 2001, the XBox launched at a retail price of $299. The GameCube launched the same year at a retail price of $199.99.

In 2005, the XBox 360 launched at a retail price of $299 or $399 (two different models). In 2006, the Nintendo Wii launched at a retail price of $249.99.

Basically, gamers were accustomed to an idea of "$300 for a console," and Nintendo consistently undershot it to try and win over consumers who might have otherwise gone for higher-performance consoles. When Microsoft released theirs at $399 for what was seen by many in the gaming community as "the true 360," it created a bit of a stir.

And so when Sony released their next console, the PS3, in 2006 at a launch price of $599, "quite a stir" wasn't even the half of it. Gamers were livid, and most refused to pay such an outrageous price, easily double what Microsoft had asked of them in the previous generation and nearly three times what Nintendo was asking them to then pay for their "revolutionary" Wii. The price was pretty much forced to come down to $400 before most gamers would even bite, and even then gamers were still pissed that the era of a $300 higher-performance console was over.

But $999? For a gaming console? Ain't no way. If it's a high performance PC that does way more than just game, then sure, maybe. But if all it can do is game, then even if the gaming it does do is pretty, most console gamer adults are going to be a hard sell. And most console gamer children are going to be S.O.L. as no parent outside of the super-wealthy is going to drop one grand on their kid for a video game console.
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Old 01-09-2013, 02:44 AM   #20
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It wasn't just the fact that the PS3's outrageous price was just that, but coupled with the fact that the PS3 literally had no games, a running joke still used today (PS3 has no games), it seemed pointless.

Objectively, yes, the PS3 is the best console on the market in terms of performance. This is a fact, so Xbox fanboys, bite your tongue. But at the time, just being slightly better than the 360 - and with no games - it wasn't worth it. Obviously they dropped down to competitive prices over the years so the dynamic changed, but still...

Here's the best TL;DR of it all for the uninitiated.



Anyway, with Gaben coming out today and quelling the fears that the "Piston" was in fact not THE Steambox, just one of many prototypes, and one which happened to retail near a grand, all is okay. He seemed to express that the Steambox will be affordable when it is on the market, so I think we can breathe easy.
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Old 01-09-2013, 09:04 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by deoxys View Post
It wasn't just the fact that the PS3's outrageous price was just that, but coupled with the fact that the PS3 literally had no games, a running joke still used today (PS3 has no games), it seemed pointless.

Objectively, yes, the PS3 is the best console on the market in terms of performance. This is a fact, so Xbox fanboys, bite your tongue. But at the time, just being slightly better than the 360 - and with no games - it wasn't worth it. Obviously they dropped down to competitive prices over the years so the dynamic changed, but still...
The PS3's extra power is basically worthless - I can count the exclusives worth having on my fingers, and only exclusive games benefit from it being more powerful (given cross-platform games, being designed to run on the 360, just don't use the PS3's full capabilities). S'why I chose the 360 over the PS3, it seemed pointless to shell out for extra performance that was never going to be used. I will almost certainly buy the weaker of the two this coming gen as well on the same basis.
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Old 01-19-2013, 08:14 PM   #22
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That is an insanely high price. That's only $59 more than the two NVIDIA GTX 680s I just bought, and they are probably a lot more useful in the long run.

Also, the PS3's power is merely a technicality. In practice, Xbox 360s games almost always have smoother frame rates, better special effects, and higher resolution textures. The only exceptions are typically special exclusives like MGS4 or whatnot.

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Old 01-20-2013, 12:57 AM   #23
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That is an insanely high price. That's only $59 more than the two NVIDIA GTX 680s I just bought, and they are probably a lot more useful in the long run.
To be fair, graphics cards aren't really useful unless you have a computer to stick them in, or at least a computer that makes sticking in a $470 graphics card worthwhile.
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Old 01-20-2013, 01:11 AM   #24
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Furthermore, he bought two of them. Does he shit money?
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Old 01-20-2013, 01:17 AM   #25
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Yes, I eat paper, drink ink, and shit real money.

Actually no, I just spent months saving up for the purchase. People always think I am rich for some reason, but I've actually been working on this same computer continuously since 2010. It's kind of like that Johnny Cash song "One Piece at a Time" but with a computer instead of a Cadillac.
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