Valve Says ‘Piston’ Is Just One Of Multiple Hardware Prototypes

Project Piston isn’t the only one: Valve is showing off a number of hardware prototypes behind closed doors at the Consumer Electronics Show this week, according to a new report.

Yesterday, a company called Xi3 announced that it will release a Valve-backed computer built to play Steam games in your living room. Details are still sketchy on the new hardware, code-named Piston, but we know that it will be out at some point in Q2 of 2013 (so, April through June).

And according to a Polygon report, this isn’t the only piece of hardware Valve is showing off at CES this year.

“Valve will be at CES to meet with hardware and content developers in our booth space,” Valve’s Doug Lombardi told Polygon today. “We are bringing multiple custom (hardware) prototypes as well as some off-the-shelf PCs to our CES meetings… We will be sharing more information to the press and public in the coming months.”

In December, Valve boss Gabe Newell told me that they plan to release their own living room-friendly Steam hardware this year. Third-party companies will also sell Steam-backed hardware, he said.

This Xi3 package is likely one of the third-party releases, not any sort of official “Steam Box.”

Valve meeting with hardware and content developers at CES, Piston one of many prototypes [Polygon]