Xi3 recently opened preorders for Piston, the company’s gaming-optimized personal computer. I actually had a chance to speak to the company’s chief marketing officer David Politis over the weekend at South by Southwest Interactive, where he described the device as a combination of the best aspects of PCs and gaming consoles:
Consoles are great because they’re small, they’ve got a great environment, but they are closed and you can’t update them. Computers, on the other hand, they’re typically great because there’s a lot of software for ’em, you can run basic computing things, you can surf the web and all of that, but they’re typically really big and they typically suck power. And they’re ugly.
Piston, Politis said, represents a “middle ground” with the size and elegance of a console, plus the modularity and updatability of a PC. He also hinted that Xi3 is trying to land some exclusive games from developers.
Politis was vague about the exact shipping date, except to say that the Piston will ship sometime around the holiday season. Suggested retail price is $999.99, but you can pre-order it here for $899.99.