Xi3’s Piston releases November 29

Back in January, a little company called Xi3 announced a partnership with Valve for this small-form Piston PC. It was the original Steam Box, way back before all this Steam OS and Steam Machines hullabaloo. Since Valve severed ties with the company back in March, Xi3’s Piston has been the subject of much scrutiny.

Well, it’s actually coming out on November 29.

For $1000, this tiny computer will include a 128GB SSD, 8GBs of RAM, a 3.2GHz AMD Trinity processor, and a Radeon 7000-series GPU. Sure, that’s a lot of cash for not very much power. But when you look at its small size, it’s a fair deal.

Even though I’m more interested in an AppleTV type local streaming device, the Piston is a neat first step forward for Steam OS.