I think this case is kind of hideous. Just saying. That's probably why their kickstarter failed.

Also all PCs are modular how do you differentiate.

Why does the box have to be small? A large computer isn't huge or really take up that much space, with proper planning it can easily be hidden. The question is am I spend $1000 for just playing games, meaning I need another computer to ramble on GB?

@Phished0ne: Cool. Thanks for the tip!

So... im still going to build myself a new PC.

@Trilogy said:

NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE US DOLLARS.

Upvoted.

Curious.

I wonder if Valve paid Xi3 100,000 pesos to put on a show with the infamous Steam Box?

Sorry for being a grammar jerk, but that fruit was hung too low.

I trust in Valve.

A box...that plays vidja games on your TEE-VEE?! What is this newfangled sorcery? [/sarcasm]

Video and (computer) games, what? Where's the distinction?

$1000 seems tre steep for a box which basically just streams, unless it's a dedicated gaming device?

@46464646 said:

Woah. Who is this for exactly? I'm sure I'm missing some crucial piece of information but...

People with $1000 who are too dumb to build their own PC. Or people who already have a PC but also have too much money. If only it had an apple logo it would sell gangbusters.

I wouldn't use this thing if I got it for free. Seems like a terrible idea. Why won't this awful steambox idea just die?

So this may not end up being THE solution I want it to be, but oh my god I really want something along these lines.

I'm a PC guy through and through and have built my own systems for years. Over time the plug and play nature of PC building has gotten much more mature to the point that anyone could do it should they be so inclined. However I have always thought that my screaming gaming system is only one iteration of that kind of PC (in the same way that the closed blackbox computers that are mobile phones and laptops are the polar opposite end of the scale). Ideally I'd like the kind of modular system that I could carry around with me and have become a different creature depending on the environment/context I happen to be in. I'd love a mobile computer (convertible laptop / tablet-like / whatever) that I can use and abuse on the go, then plug into a large monitor, external graphics and storage when at home or at work. Add to that cloud storage so that my data can be wherever I happen to be, retain the ability to upgrade / swap out constituent parts to allow the core system to evolve over time, and even the option to connect up to a TV for 'lean back' gaming and I'd be in PC nerdist heaven.

The small, modular design inherent in Xi3's systems (or at least systems like them) are one link in that chain. I really hope VALVe's investment helps to push the development of these products and help establish the idea that a PC doesn't necessarily have to be this huge beige box that sits in the corner collecting dust and humming like a generator.

Don't worry it'll be 75% off by the next holiday sale. :D

NINE HUNDRED AND NINETY NINE US DOLLARS!

$999?

Shit

Still trying to figure out how Valve investing in a piece of equipment based on something that costs $1,000 means that the new equipment will also cost $1,000. Guess what, everyone - the computer you are reading this on is based on binary code - anyone else find it a huge hassle translating all those ones and zeroes on your screen into what they actually mean? Ooh, ooh, I ordered a miniature Statue of Liberty, but I had to return it because it was too light. It's based off a 225 ton statue so it should weigh 225 tons as well, right?

Wait until Valve comes out with whatever their specs (and cost!) are for the new box. Then you can deride it just as you are now if you so choose, but for potentially legitimate reasons.

I don't think this is for anyone who has already put money into a capable PC for games. The differences aren't enough, this seems more like an evolution of the format than a new product. It would probably be a huge benefit to people that have wanted to get a game/home theater PC but didn't want to build it themselves.

I would much prefer a wireless box that streams input to my PC, like a digital TV box but all it does is wirelessly send keyboard/mouse/gamepad input to my PC and hdmi output to my TV, leave the big beefy PC in the office but harness it's power for streaming in the living room or anywhere else you want.

Yeah, I can build my own upgradeable PC because I've put the time and energy into learning how to execute upon the research I do, so I'm probably not going to invest in one of these boxes, whatever they end up being. But I'm not going to be so dismissive as to just say it's a shit idea out the gate, like most of you guys seem to be doing based on incomplete information. The never-ending negativity of the internet really is a powerful, ugly force.

I'm guessing if there was significant steam integration (i.e. the only way to purchase games on it), then they would be willing to sell it at a big loss.

@Phished0ne: No price has been announced, and it's not Valve's product. A lot of people are making weird assumptions about this thing.

Read a few pages of comments and nobody was asking for them to just make it look like a companion cube. Shame.

So the only news we have is Valve investing in X13 for their modular micro PCs, and everyone shits on them based on their current model? No one really knows what Valve is planning to do with X13's tech, so it's a little early to boo on them for something that isn't even their own product.

If pricing is anything higher than ~$700, I think it will utterly fail.

I am extremely interested in a "console-like" PC for my TV, but I know I'll be buying an xbox 720 or PS4 next year and a price as high as $1000 means I will simply pass on this.

I don't get it. At the $1000 price point this suggests, it likely out-prices any next-gen console by a factor of two. And how much upgradability can you pack into such a tiny box, with all its parts custom? For $1000 you can build a pretty damned good gaming PC and plug it into your HDTV directly. So what market is this for, again? Or am I missing something?

EDIT: I know people are saying that it's not necessarily $1000, but unless it's price-competitive with consoles (ie., areound $500 with a similar performance profile) it's not going to be attractive at all. They'd have been better off coming up with a box that wirelessly streams video and input signals back and forth. Which could probably be done for a few hundred bucks.

I'm probably in the minority, but I like the idea of a Steam Box. That is mostly because I don't own a gaming capable PC and only play the occasional graphics-lite games...though I do own a lot of PC games from sales for when I did get aroud to buying a PC.

The only time Valve has made a mistake has been to release Ricochet, so I think they've got the benefit of the doubt on this.

I liked Ricochet

does anyone really think a device like this will end up being a grand?

some really caustic rage in the comments here. 1. you probably shouldn't dismiss it at such an early stage with incomplete information. 2. maybe stop reading about and commenting about something you hate so much.

i'm still interested to see where they go with this. if they can knock it down to $400-500 price point i could see it being a good bridge between console and PC, and games on it would still look quite a bit better even at mid/low settings compared to consoles.

This sounds more like a licensing deal to me. Xi3 computers will just come with Steam pre-installed. No big deal.

@Shuborno

EDIT: Nevermind, I'm an idiot.

I'd spend $2,000 on something like this if it could play Crysis 3 with ultra max settings. I wouldn't mind if it was bigger too because I'd imagine it would have to be.

The idea of meaty gaming PCs with the same ease of use that consoles have excites me to no end.

I really like the form factor, but the lack of a proper GPU makes this a no-no. This is great for retro, 2D, video streaming and websurfing, not gaming.

But then again, i'd be just as happy with a barebone/htpc formfactor as the one they show off in the verge article/valve booth.

This is a little before it's time. Intel can probably compete against AMD/Nvidia in the future with it's integrated GPU, but now's not the time.

I've heard a lot of good stuff about AMD's trinity though, why wouldn't Xi3 go with something like that?

Are they getting too warm?

I'm kind of surprised it fell so short of its goal on kikstarter. I mean, I didn't donate for it, but I know plenty of people who were/are excited for it. Ah well. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

@VicLast said:

I'm kind of surprised it fell so short of its goal on kikstarter. I mean, I didn't donate for it, but I know plenty of people who were/are excited for it. Ah well. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.

I am not surprised at all. They priced themselves out of the console gaming market and don't offer the kind of hardware PC gamers want at a $1000 price. From the Kickstarter description they have an x86 processor with what sounds like integrated graphics and a 64 gb ssd with Windows installed and 8 gb of DDR3. The RAM is the most respectable part of the hardware.The hard drive is too small for a gaming PC and the choice of x86 instead of x64 is really strange. If they are indeed using integrated graphics they just lost the PC gaming crowd. They brag about being able to put a 1 tb ssd in there, but that would double the price. I guess what I am trying to say is that this is too expensive for console gamers and the hardware is too weak for PC gamers so they have not attracted many buyers.

The idea has potential, but for it to take off they need a lower price point. Come in at $500 and you would have a simple entry level gaming PC but that would probably destroy their profit margin. The next Xbox and Playstation certainly will not help as all rumors point to them costing about $400 and MS and Sony can afford selling consoles at a loss. The case form factor is really limiting because it makes the hardware much more expensive than it would otherwise need to be. If Valve does something like this I think it would be more successful because they could subsidize hardware and get something more powerful under the hood.

Man, 2013 is gonna be Year of the Platforms by this point.

Interesting stuff, I think Valve along with Steam, and a small form factor console/pc, could easily take a even larger chunk out of the console market.

@Reisz: I dont think any of the upcoming steam boxes, this or Valve's own, will be for people who can build PCs. Unless size/form factor is a huge concern, it just doesn't seem worth it when I can build a high end PC for that price, and not worry about upgrades for two years.

Using an HDMI switch, and a PC located elsewhere (say, in a room on the other side of the wall your TV is on) is probably a better solution for PC builders. And the hardware and software to do this is available right now, thanks to Big Picture. If Windows 8 has any sort of Xbox 360 controller support for Metro, I will seriously consider an upgrade.

I don't know the dimensions on that box, but most modern video cards are larger than the size that looks to be. It leads me to wonder if the hardware in it is worth the price point because you can build a pretty decent PC for $1000.

@Subjugation said:

I don't know the dimensions on that box, but most modern video cards are larger than the size that looks to be. It leads me to wonder if the hardware in it is worth the price point because you can build a pretty decent PC for $1000.

Integrated chipsets by AMD and Nvidia have been at a point where they've been able to handle the recent games at low to medium settings for a number of years now, and they also have ranges of mid-tier low power graphics cards like the AMD HD 7750 that can be passively cooled with a modestly sized heatsink, and thus don't need the one meter heatsink/fan setups that were all the rage about graphics cards 5 years ago. Wouldn't surprise me if this box uses something like that. I'm sure they'll also be selling the hardware at a loss, like Microsoft and Sony does.

Pretty expensive for a crappy PC rig.

Eh, the first iteration I think I'll hold off on, not sure how powerful it really is, and I don't think I'd really want to run Linux off of it, rather do OS X Snow Leopard or XP Pro. Also, I would hope it isn't that small, because it doesn't really need to be. And most importantly, it really can't be over like $700. That's just kind of silly at that point.

@Kidavenger: My guess is that you'll be able to slot-load a mobo/CPU/GPU card without replacing the rest of the innards. $999 and then $400 every 1-2 years, with $150 of that rebated when you mail the old bits back.

Just a guess, but that's a commercial proposition I could get behind...

@fisk0 said:

@Subjugation said:

I don't know the dimensions on that box, but most modern video cards are larger than the size that looks to be. It leads me to wonder if the hardware in it is worth the price point because you can build a pretty decent PC for $1000.

Integrated chipsets by AMD and Nvidia have been at a point where they've been able to handle the recent games at low to medium settings for a number of years now, and they also have ranges of mid-tier low power graphics cards like the AMD HD 7750 that can be passively cooled with a modestly sized heatsink, and thus don't need the one meter heatsink/fan setups that were all the rage about graphics cards 5 years ago. Wouldn't surprise me if this box uses something like that. I'm sure they'll also be selling the hardware at a loss, like Microsoft and Sony does.

Don't forget about the higher end laptop graphics cards too. The AMD Radeon 7970m can run Skyrim at 60+ fps on Ultra settings.. and it's not very large. Be interesting to see the power one of these things in the finalized gaming model puts out.

I think, post CES, the more interesting topic is how people see Valves Big Picture Mode and 'steamboxs' as more of a threat to consoles when they are really a fierce competitor to typical high end PC/computer gaming.

Some seem to think that the segment of the market that will be craved off will be console players who want a PC experience. But, it seems far more likely the market segmented that will be carved off will be PC gamers who just don't want to be on the expensive 'upgrade every year' or 'fiddle with new drivers to just make one game work' road.

The steam boxes seem to be settling into a niche of $500-$900, but consoles are for next gen are going to be $300-$400 if analysist on both sises are to be believed. The threat to 'computer gaming' isn't even at the level of components...all system still need CPUs, GPUs, memory, storage, and drives - those base level component manufacturer are fine with computers, consoles or steamboxs selling. The losers are the PC OEMs who's niche is in high level PC game box production. Those dude that will origami you cables and sell you those 'neon light' PC towers are they people under threat.

I guarantee you when Steam-box comes, a year later it won't be console owners who are whining, it will be people saying, "Damn it, all games are made to play at 'steambox levels' and nothing takes advantage of my $1700 rig. How the hell is PC gaming bigger and growing and there's jack shit that take advantage of my $600 graphics card!?"

Im a valvedrone but if this is more than 1000$ then it's a no for me

I'll wait to see what these things look like in mid 2015, after a baseline for hardware requirements of next-gen console ports has had time to settle in.