The Steam Box – All Aboard the Steam Train!

The internet has recently been abuzz with some of the latest news surrounding the ‘Steam Box’, a so-called PC which can be linked up to the television in your living room. Apparently, it will grant you access to thousands of titles whilst being able to fit in the palm of your hand…

The Steam Box, codenamed ‘Piston’, is being funded by Steam and developed by the Xi3 Corporation, whose founder and chief executive Jason Sullivan released a statement about the purpose and goal of the console. “Today marks the beginning of a new era for Xi3,” he triumphantly began with. He then added “This new development stage product will allow users to take full-advantage of their large high-definition TV displays for an amazing computer game experience. As a result, this new system could provide access to thousands of gaming titles through an integrated system that exceeds the capabilities of leading game consoles.”

This console is seemingly bridging the mammoth gap between PC and console. Whilst you have Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo battling it out between themselves over the Lion’s share of the console market, here we see Steam sneaking in and squeezing their nice little box between PC and console users, effectively becoming the intersection of a PC/Console Venn diagram, and giving the paying customers even more headaches over which route to go down in the midst of our plethora of choices. Whether it can live up to Mr Sullivan’s comments remains to be seen, but I really do hope it works out for the best. It may give us another potential console to waste money on, but the more variety out on the market should hopefully mean the more innovation for us to enjoy? Either way, I’m happy. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with market saturation, especially when the products vary in some way, but my inner-consumerist gets the feeling that he’ll most likely part with his hard earned money in order to buy one of these little boxes. Just like I did with the Xbox 360, Wii, PS3 and Wii U…

Toodle pip!

the author

Ciaran Allen - 22 year old Writer, TV Freelancer and Graduate. I like to write whimsical and nostalgic tales about gaming, sometimes bordering on nonsensical. Look for my work on GameNTrain, N4G and also my online portfolio; Enigma Resolution Media. My Gamertag, PSN ID and Nintendo ID is TheRenegadeLobe and my Twitter name is @Ciaran_Allen. I usually end my articles with the phrase: 'Toodle pip!' Don't ask why. I probably won't tell you!

  • http://www.GameNTrain.com/ Eric Hoff

    Word that I am hearing is that this is not the true Steam Box. I heard that there are going to be multiple manufacturers that make a product that will run Steam, but that Valve is going to be making their own Steam box and that will be the real deal.

    • http://twitter.com/Ciaran_Allen Ciaran Allen

      That could be a pretty risky move from Steam! If they allow other companies to release a console with access to Steam, won’t that just harm the sales of their own version?

      Obviously, Steam will ultimately benefit from it due to the amount of Steam-ready consoles on the market, but isn’t that just a bit too noble of them? I guess time will tell!

      • http://www.GameNTrain.com/ Eric Hoff

        The question is, is Steam looking to make a ton of money on console sales or are they looking to make money on heightened game sales. I mean, to this point, all of their money has been made on game sales.

        I agree with what you are saying though. Makes total sense. I guess we will have to wait and see which of the rumors are true. On another note, I am sure Valve gets a kickback from every console sold which has their Steam software enabled. Either way, good moves for Valve.