Pat Pilcher: The wait is over - the Steam box is here

By Pat Pilcher

2:12 PM Wednesday Jan 9, 2013

Attendees gather at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Photo / AP

There has been an endless amount of speculation around a Steam games console, and today the world's largest online PC game distributor announced the Piston Steam box at CES. Developed for Steam by Xi3, the box (codenamed Piston) will be able to tap into the Steam service to download thousands of PC based gaming titles.

The box itself is fairly petite, being only marginally larger than a block of cheese. That it can be picked up in one hand also makes ideal for transporting to and from LAN parties. Another key benefit of the Piston's PC DNA will be that gamers can use a mouse keyboard combination or a traditional games controller.

The Piston is powered by Linux, and an AMD Athlon 64 CPU. Its entry level spec does however appear a little light on internal storage with only 2GB of RAM, and 8GB of flash storage. This said, the entry level Piston is a very reasonable US$850.

The Piston's user interface (otherwise known as big picture) has also been optimised for use on big screen HD capable TV. The Piston started off as an unsuccessful Kickstarter project last year, but disappeared without a trace after it gained the backing of Valve (the owner of the steam service).

By Pat Pilcher

Northbloke (Auckland Central) | 11:11AM Thursday, 10 Jan 2013

Why are the entry specs so woeful I wonder?
Most of the games I play would be rubbish with 2GB of RAM, and they basically give the stuff away these days!

Alfonso Caruana () | 11:11AM Thursday, 10 Jan 2013

I dont even know where to begin with why that sounds terrible, 2GB of RAM will be hard pressed to run games from a few years ago, and an 8GB SSD wouldn't even fit Far Cry 3 on it, I heard it was going to be upgradable (modular video card/CPU for easy replacement), but seriously guys, at least start with something half decent. I see absolutely no virtue in having one of these, especially over any half decent PC

Pompoko () | 11:11AM Thursday, 10 Jan 2013

Piston is only 'a' Steam box - not 'the' Steam box!

Looks like there will be a few to choose from - more info on 'the' Steam box here:

Edge Online website link