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.
The long-running distinction between dedicated game consoles and gaming PCs is disappearing with Valve's announcement of its own operating system, SteamOS. The hardware is changing too, with next-gen consoles from Microsoft and Sony offering much more than the ability to play disc-based games, not to mention both being built on PC architecture (x86). And PC gaming has never been more friendly in the living room, between Steam's Big Picture Mode and solid gamepad support for many games.
With one of Valve's other announcements last week, Steam Machines finally put a name to the living room PC gaming initiative we've long heard about (what the press dubbed "Steambox"). Though we heard about Xi3's Piston back at CES, and we knew about the company's financial ties to Valve, it was unclear how tied its little modular gaming PC was to the initiative. Now, however, it's more clear than ever: Xi3's release date press release repeatedly describes the Piston as "the Piston Console," meant to push up against the big three game console manufacturers. Sure, it costs $1,000 (and up), but it promises to handle modern PC games with aplomb. And it's a tiny little box!
We caught up with Xi3 this week for a second look at the Piston game "console" -- a custom version, for the game Loadout -- and its first-party wireless controller. We also got a chance to actually play some games on the little box: the first time anyone outside of the company did as much, we're told. Head past the break for our impressions.%Gallery-slideshow99844%
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD
When the Xi3 Piston modular PC / game console ships this November, it'll ship like most PCs do: without a gamepad. Sadly, the in-house controller from Piston will be sold separately for a separate, undisclosed price. "There will be a future announcement about our plans for controllers," was the most that chief marketing officer David Politis would share during a brief interview this morning. We managed to snap the pic you see above before the controller was whisked away; Politis and co. refused any closer snaps, not to mention a opportunity to go hands-on.
The PC-cum-game-console will launch with "some version" of Windows (the console we saw here was running Windows 7), rather than SteamOS. The only look we've had at Xi3's GUI was brief, during SXSW's gaming expo. And Politis called that brief glimpse "presentation-ware." He said we'll see it running "before we officially ship" in video form at the very least, and it'll run as a Windows-based program on the shipping box. He did speak to how it will work, though. "It'll be customizable ... when [the Piston] is ready to run, you'll be in our GUI. You won't be in an OS per se," Politis told Engadget. "It's connected to the net, so you should be able to access any type of content you already have ownership of or licensing rights to from inside of the GUI. And you're gonna be able to do that. You can start thinking through, 'What do I already own or have license rights to that I can access through the internet?' These are ticking off the different types of things that you and your readers own or have access to." When we specifically noted Amazon, Netflix and Hulu, as well as gaming services like Steam and UPlay, Politis confirmed our (obvious) guesses.
Update: Xi3 told us that the custom GUI will ship with the console in November. Please excuse the confusion!
Filed under: Desktops, Gaming, Peripherals, Software, HD
As if shelling out $900 this holiday to snag the two next-gen game consoles wasn't enough, Xi3's Piston modular gaming PC is arriving on November 29th for $1,000. Should money be no object to you, the adorable little box is available for pre-order right this minute, and that'll lock in an earlier arrival by two weeks. Included in today's news of the Piston's launch date is word that internal storage capacity was upped by another SSD connector; Xi3 says up to 1TB of SSD storage is now supported.
In a hilarious nod to Valve's Steam Machines news last week, Xi3 notes, "By adding a second SSD to their Pistons, users will be able to load a second operating system onto their machines, including the newly announced SteamOS." As previously reported, Xi3 is (at least in part) financially-backed by Valve, and the Piston is a bit of a "Steambox" (the previous name for Valve's Steam Machines effort) itself. SteamOS is said to be coming "soon," ahead of Steam Machines' official launch in 2014, and you'll see no surprise on our faces should SteamOS arrive ahead of Piston's November 15th pre-order availability.
On Xi3's homepage, the Piston is positioned with a wireless, Piston-branded gamepad (seen above). It's unclear if it ships with the system later this year, so we've reached out to Xi3 for more info.
Filed under: Desktops, Misc, Gaming, Peripherals, HD
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.
Via: Joystiq
Source: Xi3