Following yesterday's announcement of the projected release date and pricing level of the first, unofficial, SteamBox. Valve's Doug Lombardi has come out to make it quite clear that the Piston will be an entirely separate product to the SteamBox, and that Valve were not involved in its making in any way. According to Mister Lombardi, Valve and Xi3 did explore the possibility of working on collaboration during 2012, but the end result was, well, nothing. Meaning that the Piston is entirely the work of Xi3, so all its efforts to bring Steam to our living rooms is entirely on them too. That's quite touching actually, making a very firm (in my mind) statement that whatever the reasoning was, there is clearly no ill between the two.

Still, it's a little on the pricey side for me. But what does everyone else say? Comments below.