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Has Infinity Ward shown off the Steam Box?

Images from Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward shows a self-branded version of what appears to be the Xi3 Piston Steam Box.

Nic Healey Senior Editor / Australia
Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.
Nic Healey

Images from Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward shows a self-branded version of what appears to be the Xi3 Piston Steam Box.

Is this a branded Steam Box? (Credit: Infinity Ward)

Back at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, modular PC manufacture Xi3 showed off the Piston, a small PC funded by Valve that was designed specifically to use Steam's Big Picture interface; a Steam Box by any other name.

Now game developer Infinity Ward, creator of the popular Call of Duty series, has put two different images up — one on Facebook, another on Twitter — showing a small PC with the same appearance as the Piston, but with the Infinity Ward logo printed on it.

Gaming forum NeoGaf seized on the images quickly, and speculation has run rife, with many people wondering what the significance of the unit is to Infinity Ward. While some commenters suggested that the unit might be a "dev kit", the concept behind Big Picture and the Steam Box is that it's just a normal PC with a smaller form factor and interface designed to make it easier to use in the lounge room — there's no reason for a specific development kit to exist.

Of most curiosity is the additional module the Piston is sitting on, with the most likely explanation being that it's an external hard drive.

Hopefully Infinity Ward or Valve-itself will provide more information soon.