The “Steam Box” era begins with the Piston, a $1,000 PC-in-a-console | Hacker News Reader

The “Steam Box” era begins with the Piston, a $1,000 PC-in-a-console

arstechnica.com

61 pointsshawndumas51 comments

Ringing in the new era with a dud.

Why does it need to fit in the palm of your hand when it will most likely sit on a shelf its entire life? And who thought there was demand for a $1,000 mid-range gaming console? A cheap, low-performance device could at least be justified as an emulator/HTPC if it couldn't serve as a dedicated current-gen gaming console (which the Piston can't do either).

If this is any preview of what's to come from the "Steam Box" lineup, consider my excitement totally extinguished.

I think it's important to note that this actually isn't the Valve branded "Steam box", but actually a similar spec hardware platform to the one Valve is developing internally. It's unfortunate that a lot of the momentum and hype Valve can leverage with their name is being wasted on this particular platform which they have nothing to do with.

> they have nothing to do with

They may not be the ones creating this, but they do have something to do with it, in that they have officially partnered with Xi3 and call this system a "third-party prototype" of the Steam Box. Arguably the momentum/hype wouldn't be "wasted" (subjective term) if Valve hadn't chosen to "waste" (/"use") it on this product.

Valve just stated that they "began some exploratory work with Xi3 last year, but currently has no involvement in any product of theirs."

And by "just stated", I mean they just stated it today. I thought they were still associated as well:

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/03/12/valve-disassociates-itself...

This product is an awful bunch of compromises. The price is far too high for the performance it delivers. No console owner will be tempted by a $1000 price tag and limited game catalog. No PC gamer will be tempted by tepid performance in a small package.

I wonder what their hardware cost is for that device. A comparable PC shouldn't cost half as much. How much of the price is due to the custom motherboard and case?

Just like the PS4, this is PC hardware. And actual PCs provide more hardware for less money.

That all depends on what video card they used as the 7000 series covers a lot of ground. That said I suspect they went for 'fits in your hand' over a good cost / performance ratio.

It's clear valve isn't subsidizing it with game purchases, which may end up being a requirement. That can still happen though, so keep an eye out for a price drop.

Well yeah I would not expect them to subsidize hardware that is not their own. This is not Valve's Steam Box this is just a third party Steam Box. That is the key difference between the Steam Box and consoles, there will be a Valve reference implementation but there will be many other options.

It's a first generation product—nobody in their right mind would buy it anyway. Setting the price at $1000 means people who buy it probably know what they are doing and can help valve improve the most—think paying for a beta test.

At least that's my interpretation.

>It's a first generation product

I'm not even sure how a later generation product could improve on this one. Maybe a nicer form factor, but components would largely be the same.

I think that's an optimistic interpretation. The "early adopter" tax people pay for the first version of something works for no-other-options devices (think the first HDTV's or Blu-Ray players). In this case however, just about can go to Microcenter and build a better-performing machine for significantly cheaper. The form factor or power consumption may not be as good, but I'm not entirely sure how much that matters compared to several hundred dollars of up-front savings?

Here is a nice guide for a $500 "Steam Box"

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-build-your-own... Great pictures for assembly - components as follows:

  Processor: Intel Core i3-3220 ($130)
  Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H61M-HD2 Micro-ATX ($55)
  RAM: Kingston Value 4GB DDR3 1066 Low-Profile ($30)
  Video Card: AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GHz Edition ($115)
  Hard Drive: Western Digital Blue 500GB 7200RPM ($60)
  Power Supply: Antec NEO ECO 400-Watt ($40)
  Case: Antec New Solution VSK-3000 ($30)
  Cooler: Cooler Master GeminII M4 ($30)

A great resource for building a custom PC on a fixed budget is http://www.logicalincrements.com/.

The GPU is fine, but that build needs more RAM and possibly a better CPU. Would benefit significantly from an SSD; spend ~$100 on a 128GB SSD and watch your loading times drop.

yup, 8 Gigs of RAM should be mandatory. Also a i5 3720 has a excellent performance/price ratio.

My machine is always on. Subjectively, having 24GB of RAM made far more of a performance difference than my Plextor PX-256M3P, presumably because with 24GB of RAM pretty much everything of importance ends up being cached in RAM sooner or later.

Is there really a point to a custom cooler when there are literally no high-end components in the machine capable of producing an appreciable amount of heat? Seems like $30 wasted.

This is going to be a tough sell. The PS4's performance is going to blow this thing out of the water, and it's a practical guarantee that the next Xbox will also - and probably not cost more.

The fan can run more slowly (with the cooler it's more efficient) - so the the system runs more quietly. Important for a living room appliance.

No offense, but can we at least spend more on cases instead of recommending people ugly boxes? Yeah I understand it might be banished to the entertainment center for life, but all the thought into selecting components, assembling it, and wiring it just right, get tossed out the moment I see what amounts to black painted cardboard box equivalent.

I know, for many its what inside that counts, but for some its presentation that shows to others that all details matter.

$1000 seems a little pricey, however, a grapefruit sized, sleek computer has a lot higher Wife Approval Factor than the "On Sale" computer case with red flashing LEDs I used for my server. Even at $900, I'm not getting one pre-sale, but something like this that sits comfortably on top of/beside my stereo might happen at some point.

The video card is a 7660, so probably the highest end graphics you can get in something that isn't pulling more wattage.

Something like this might make it into my living room at some point, but I'll have to see how it performs as an HTPC type of thing before committing. The SSD doesn't bother me so much, most content is streaming or going to be stored on a main server for me.

Does it support airplay out of the box?

I don't mind having to ssh in to get things to work right, but there's a lot to be said for something that "Just seems to work most of the time" for other household members.

Edit: Looking around, it seems the amd R series is too new to have many reviews, but the 464 is the top 'APU' in the lineup and seems to be targeted at some of the i7 line from intel. There aren't many for sale retail, but just the cpu and a motherboard would run about $450 if my maths are right ($229 retail for the APU, ~175 pounds for a jetway motherboard). So, the form factor seems to be adding a really large premium. Adding in memory, disk, etc. I can see it getting to $1000. This is also a 35W system, while I still think $1000 is above my pain threshold, a 35W system doing full-on PC gaming is a little mind-blowing to those of us who remember when Pentium-based computer was a synonym for 400W 'space heater'.

I think it's important to note that this is a 3rd party offering that's compliant with what we assume to be the "steambox standards", and is not Valve's first party product.

From the article:

>This is not to be confused with Valve's own Steam Box hardware development efforts, which should result in a prototype in the next few months.

For the price? They should have called it the "idiot box."

That name was taken by the television.

Sadly, no matter what kind of hardware/specs it has, the price point is too high. One reason the Wii took over back a huge chunk of the market was the price point (yes, you can also talk about the novel controllers, games, etc, but it is hard to argue against the pricing argument). When I was at MS Games studio, there was a lot of research that backed up the idea of "console sweet spots". Sadly, those (Gartner?) reports cost a lot of money and are not public so I can link to them :-(

The GameCube was the cheapest console in the last generation and still had comparable hardware. Although it didn't have a DVD player, I'm not seeing why the Wii sold as much as it did if you're going off price alone.

You are right. I should have clarified that price point is important when competing technologies are somewhat good enough. The GameCube was competing with ps2 and Xbox at the time. Hardly equivalent. Think a about it this way: A 33Mhz processor for $5, a 2.6Ghz processor for $199, a 2.8Ghz processor for $299, a 3.8Ghz processor for $1000. If those were your only options for a gift, which one would you pick? At the time, let me remind you, that the GameCube was that 33Mhz like experience while people were playing Halo on the Xbox

This reminds me of the 3D0. It was the first 32 bit video game console on the market and was well ahead of its time in multiple ways (Internet multiplayer). However they entered a saturated market at a very steep cost and never fully took off. This won't take off at a 1000 dollars. Who has that kind of money to spend on something that doesn't provide more value than alternatives?

Exactly. Remember the Neo Geo? Arcade-quality games... better than any other console of its time! The price point killed it.

As other people point out you can always build your own cheaper, but if you want an out of the box solution, the Alienware X51 is surely already here, with a starting price of $700, a form-factor / size not dissimilar to the Xbox 360, and better (I think, though I'm not great at AMD/Intel AMD/NVIDIA comparisons) specs?

$699 gets you i3-3220, GT640, 6GB memory - upgradable at multiple price points up to $1299 for i7-3770, GTX660, 16GB memory.

http://www.dell.com/us/p/alienware-x51/pd.aspx

Disclaimer: I do not work for Dell/Alienware, however I do in some ways work with them - the above is my personal opinion, my work does not involve evangelising :)

The "Steam Box" era won't/can't begin until Steam is actually delivering the "all gamepad" experience that living-room users expect.

And that sounds like it's further away than hardware that hits any particular place on the price/performance/heat/noise spectrum.

I kind of hope not, the biggest draw for me of playing PC/Steam games vs just playing console games is the deep strategy games available on Steam. Trying to play those with a controller? No thanks!

You could support both control schemes in one game, but then how do you make it so that the gamepad players don't get frustrated when playing against those with a keyboard and mouse?

Actually, I've found a good amount of support for gamepads in Steam already. When they rolled out the Big Picture mode beta several months ago, games already started adding in controller support. Games that hadn't updated in years (Audiosurf) updated to add controller support. It's not completely universal, but it seems pretty good so far. Additionally, if they build in something like Joy2Key into the Steam Box hardware, it may be easier than you'd think.

Yes, but where gamepads are already supported, it's more the rule than the exception that you're going to run into menus and things that can't be negotiated via the gamepad.

(e.g. Windows UAC prompts, menus, pop-ups or text boxes that inexplicably demand kb/m input, etc. )

So it's not as if one flips the power on and sits on their couch with just a gamepad and has a console-style experience.

I agree, price seems way off. I built a Steam Box for around $400 based on a multitude of guides out there, and every game I've thrown at it so far has run wonderfully (Tomb Raider, Skyrim, NBA 2k13, etc)

What's the configuration?

Radeon 5850, 4gb ram, AMD x6 3ghz

$250

I built a techstation instead of buying a case, used an old hard drive, and bought the GPU + power supply used on ebay.

Something very similar to this:

1GB XFX Radeon HD 7770 Intel Pentium G850, Socket 1155, Dual Core, 2.90GHz LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x DVD±R Fractal Design Core 1000 500W Storm Silent LPJ19-25 MSI H61M-P31 (G3) Motherboard 4GB Corsair Value DDR3 PC3-10600 (1333) 500GB Seagate ST500DM002 Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm Windows 7 64BIT Professional

There's too many plugs on this thing for a living room box. Way too many. One USB, one HDMI, that's it. Need a headset? Use bluetooth.

The Mac Mini has fewer ports than this, and it's an honest-to-pete computer.

What are you going to plug all the gamepads into then?

This is what Asia does, they skip the consumer research and just make stuff and sell it at a small markup over cost. This is not a new product, a revolution, or anything other than a tiny PC. Some people will buy it, it might even be called a platform, but it's not a revolution.

Yeah, that's all that continent of 17,212,000 square miles, with a population of around 4.2 billion people in 48 countries, does.

When I see ridiculous stuff like this 'Steam Box' it makes me really glad I joined the OUYA bandwagon early on ...

OUYA!

I can't wait to get this right after I buy the chrome pixel in 2016.

In order to justify that price it needs to things well other than games.

I'm curious as to what the difference is between a "Steam box" and a PC running Linux or Windows that has steam installed?

No difference beyond prepackaged software. It's just a PC in a small box, nothing special.

What kind of changes can this 'steam-box' generation bring about for developers as well as consumers?

If it takes off you will see PC hardware become more console like than it is now, lengthened hardware cycles for GFX cards etc. Devs get a slower moving target to aim at, min specs become the current or perhaps previous gen. Steam box. Consumers get easy compatibility, Game X is compatible with Steam box 2+.

I would have kept my old Radeon 7200 if I had known it would be high tech again.

Anyone know what distro it is meant to support?

Currently, Steam is only distributed for Ubuntu.

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