Xi3's Piston modular console available Nov. 29

Xi3's customizable Piston console will be available Nov. 29, the company revealed today.

According to the official Piston website, it will offer "native triple monitor support," 8 GB of RAM and an 128 GB SSD. Owners will be able to upgrade the device to include up to two 512 GB SSDs. It will also sport a 3.2 GHz AMD Trinity CPU and a Radeon 7000 series GPU with 8 GB of DDR3 RAM. You can pre-order the Piston for $999 through Xi3's website.

It will support controllers, keyboard and mouse and other input devices. "In fact, if a virtual reality peripheral is your thing, then go right ahead," the site reads. The Piston will also ship with "a nice sampler of pre-loaded games to play" and will support TVs and computer displays.

Xi3's Piston first entered the news cycle earlier this year, when the company unveiled a prototype for a modular gaming device during CES. The company teased today's announcement late last week. Though initially announced as a partnership with Valve, it was later announced that the two companies no longer have ties.

Last week, Valve made three announcements about bringing PC gaming into the living room, including official Linux-powered Steam Machines coming in 2014 and an operating system called SteamOS. In an FAQ distributed by Xi3 today, the company said that the PC would support Steam but that it was "a bit premature" to say whether or not the Piston would come pre-loaded with SteamOS.

"However, according to the SteamOS announcement page, the SteamOS will 'run on any living room machine,'" the FAQ reads. "Therefore, SteamOS should be able to run on Piston Consoles (PCs) as well, but we'll have to wait until SteamOS is available to confirm this."

Xi3 also clarified that it never attempted to characterize its hardware as a "Steam Box," the catch-all term used for devices that would be designed to run Steam and its games in the living room.

"Xi3 has never described its Piston Console (PC) as the Steam box or a Steam Box, especially since it appears that Steam Box is a term created by journalists and not by Valve," the FAQ reads [emphasis in original]. "To be clear, however, Piston console owners will be able to access and play games on/through Steam since it is a Web-based platform open to anyone with an Internet connection and a Steam account, either on a Windows- or a Linux-based system. So in this regard, Piston could be considered the first commercially available Steam Box."