Xi3’s modular PC, the Piston—which some may remember as the original “Steam Box” announcement—will be available on November 29th, the manufacturer announced today in a new update on its website.
The Piston will support up to three monitors, Xi3 say in their update, and also mention that the device will support keyboards, mice and controllers. They add, “In fact, if a virtual reality peripheral is your thing, then go right ahead. Since the Piston works in any setting, we’re going to give you a nice sampler of pre-loaded games to play.”
Just what these pre-loaded games will be remains to be seen. Xi3 say they’ll share further details on this front prior to this year’s Black Friday. Additionally, Xi3 have announced further details regarding storage solutions:
Previously, Xi3 announced that PISTON utilizes internal solid-state SSD storage and that PISTON Consoles will ship standard with 128GB of SSD storage. Xi3 further revealed today that it has been able to double the potential SSD storage capacity of the PISTON Console by adding a second SSD connector within its PISTON design, as well as a separate, internal microSD slot. This second SSD connector gives PISTONs the capability of more than 1TB of super-fast (6Gbps) solid-state storage.
The Xi3 Piston was originally announced as a product developed in partnership with Valve, but this partnership was later dissolved. Then, last week, Valve announced their own “Steam Box” strategy with Steam Machines and the SteamOS.
Whether or not the Piston will come loaded with SteamOS has not yet been announced. Back in March, Xi3 announced that the device would come with Windows on it. You can find further details regarding specifications and price here.
