“The Pis-what? Who? Never heard of it.” – Valve
The Steam Box — if it’s going to be the future of gaming, it needs to get its s–t together, because things are starting to get confusing.
Back in January hardware manufacturer Xi3 Corporation unveiled the Piston. According to Xi3, Valve was providing them with financial and technical support, and the Piston was shown at both Xi3 and Valve’s booths at this year’s CES. So yeah, all evidence seemed to indicate this was the first official 3rd party Steam Box.
Since then things have got weird…
Late last week Xi3 confirmed the Piston will launch this Holiday for a whopping $1000. Valve immediately distanced themselves from Xi3 and the Piston, releasing this statement…
“Valve began some exploratory work with Xi3 last year, but currently has no involvement in any product of theirs.”
Xi3 then called bulls–t on Valve’s statement…
“We reaffirm the fact that we received an investment from Valve Corporation (as we previously disclosed during the 2013 International CES trade show), and we did so with Valve’s written permission. Second, we were asked to build a product specifically for Valve, and both companies showcased this product—the Piston Console—in their respective booths at CES 2013.”
Soooo yeah, what the hell is going on here? Is Xi3 exaggerating Valve’s involvement in the development of the Piston? Is Valve throwing Xi3 under the bus for some reason? Possibly because they don’t want the Piston competing with their own 1st party Steam Box?
All I know is Valve better get itself sorted before the holidays (and find a way to price it’s new console below a thousand freakin’ dollars) or the Steam Box’s future looks dark.