First Steam Box priced at $1,000

The future’s gonna be expensive

The first living-room PC supported by Valve, the Piston by Xi3, has officially begun taking pre-orders. Judging by its price tag, decked-out Steam Boxes won’t be cheap.

The Piston will cost $1,000 at its base rate. It includes a 3.2 GHz quad-core processor, 8GB of RAM, and a 128GB solid state drive. Anyone looking to upgrade to a 512GB hard drive can expect to spend an additional $750.

Xi3 is offering a $100 discount on the Piston for anyone that pre-orders by March 17. The company aims to ship in time for the 2013 Holiday season.

Representatives at CES in January were hesitant to call the Piston a Steam Box. Let’s call a spade a spade, okay? It’s a living room PC that was backed by Valve that runs Steam — it’s a Steam Box.