It’s long been termed as a rumor: the “Steam Box,” a console that gives you an opportunity to play the games you own on the Steam content delivery system without the requirement of PC. It seems the reality behind the “Steam Box” is quite stranger and in the meantime more awesome, to learn.

Valve, the company behind Steam and wide array of video games, and Xi3, a miniature PC maker, have partnered to show off a computer video game system they’re calling the “Piston” at this year Computer Electronics Show (CES).

According to sources, Xi3 representatives are of the opinion that the Piston would be modeled after the X7A line of Xi3 computers, though they did not dislose any hardware details.

Indications are that the Piston sported an “IO board boasting one ethernet port, 1/8″ audio in/out, SPDIF optical audio, 4 USB 3.0 ports, 4 USB 2.0 ports (with one dedicated to keyboard input), 4 eSATAp ports, two Mini Display Port ports and one DisplayPort/HDMI port.”

According to David Politis, thechief marketing officer of Xi3, the Piston would get up to 1TB of internal storage. In other words, future Piston models may have different storage sizes. What’s more, it would also have modular part updates, including optional RAM and CPU upgrades.