Partnership with Xi3 announced at CES
There’s been talk for months that Valve would be releasing a “Set-top” box to use with their Steam software, the biggest online PC gaming service around.
Today those talks took a step forward, when Valve announced a partnership with already-awesome modular PC makers Xi3.
Xi3 have been making a good reputation for themselves over the last couple of years as producers of some very nice looking PC hardware.
Their modular computer platforms pack an awful lot of power into a relatively small space.
I tried to get to Xi3′s official website to get some reference information on their existing products, only to find that the website is down. Which could mean two things.
Firstly, news of the venture has created so much buzz that Xi3′s website just can’t cope with the traffic.
Or, Xi3 have taken down their website while they work to update it with the latest information on the proposed Xi3-Valve-PC-gaming-box-console-thing.
Both Valve and Xi3 are keeping quite quiet on this for the moment, releasing only a codename, “Piston”, and letting us know that Valve are investing in Xi3′s company as part of the venture.
It all sounds mighty interesting for me. As a Steam user I’ve often wanted to play my existing titles on my big screen TV, but who wants a huge gaming PC in their living room?
That’s a market that Valve are desperate to get into, and it looks like they’ve found an ideal partner in Xi3.