Piston

[Dog Pants]

The always rumoured never confirmed Valve hardware has been furtively unveiled at CES by the looks of things, and it's no run of the mill PC. That's not surprising, but what is surprising is that it's a somewhat configurable, PC architecture based system which looks like it might ship with Linux as standard. Okay, so the last bit wasn't too surprising really, but apparently you can run Windows on it if you want. That's not too unusual I suppose - ship your hardware with a free OS and give customers the option of what they put on - I believe that's common in Enterprise servers. So it's not the doom and gloom games console that nay-sayers were predicting. It's not a full PC either, and the initial $1100 price is steep for what you get, and what kind of performance you'll get remains to be seen. So it's not the glorious ray of light some were hoping for either. What it is, in my opinion, is very pretty. And opinion or not, at roughly the size of a (media standard measurement) grapefruit it's pretty damn compact.

More info, and the funniest headline on the subject, here.

[Shada]

I have no idea who the target audience is for this or why it even exists in the first place for that price.

[HereComesPete]

It does look nice, but I'm looking at specs and price and already wondering where the market is.

[spoodie]

I was hoping Valve would come up with something more interesting than a mini-power-PC. But the Valve connection aside it does look like a nice piece of kit, but again, what's the market? An unobtrusive PC connected to your living room TV doesn't need to be that small and have expensive bespoke parts.

[HereComesPete]

Better pistoff than piston amirite!*

[Dog Pants]

I can't think of a comfortable market for it either, but Valve do love to experiment. Consider, too, that they're really only putting their mark on a piece of hardware produced by a third party, and it's not really a risky experiment for them either. Anyone who watched the video probably noticed how conspicuously the blokey pointed out that 'partnership' with Valve weren't his words.

[buzzmong]

I reckon Valve have been approached about this and it isn't their idea, or it's just a small experiment.

I know for a fact they've hired some rather credible electrical engineers over the past 12 months or so (Jeri Ellsworth being one), and they certainly aren't working on things like the Piston.

[Thompy]

Yes, I don't think this is the "Steam Box" thing Gabe has talked about in the past.

As for this, I have no need for it, especially at that price. I'm also cynical about the upgradable/modular nature of it. It looks like non-standard parts so for a niche product it's not going to have all the usual 3rd parties making hardware for it, meaning higher prices than a regular PC component equivalent.

[FatherJack]

What they need to do is paint it grey with pink hearts on each side.

[Dog Pants]

What they need to do is paint it grey with pink hearts on each side.

[fabyak]