Valve Has its Own Operating System Now in SteamOS

...and just like that I have a perfectly good reason to throw together another HTPC. of course I will still use my powerful desktop PC for the games that require it. guess we'll have to see how it works as a dual boot as well, for the purpose of running games.

so... this OS is gonna have a prominent Half-Life 3 "theme" available right?? And perhaps this "theme" will be about 20 something hours long maybe...?

...Because what I wanted was a company to further monopolise the pc gaming industry and try to make up for it with cheap gimmicks. Valve are such hypocrites.

It's nice that the OS that is tied to Gabe's software service will be free, but gaming computers to run it are def not free.

Why does it seem like every company in the world wants us to sit in front of a television on a sofa instead of in front of a desk on a chair?

I'm pretty sure Brad and Vinny play PC games on their couch in the living room. SteamOS is for them for sure.

Huh, it will be interesting to watch how this thing works out. Because it could go either way.

I don't see who it appeals to. Most PC gamers don't need something like this. Console gamers are in their own bubble. Who's it for?

If you replace your current windows OS with steam OS you only get access to what? 7% of the total steam library? You need this thing running on a computer as well as a computer capable of running games and a windows copy and then you get to deal with network latency on top of it all. I'd rather just pop an hdmi cable into my TV from my PC, thanks.

Another Linux derivate with Steam as frontend, amazing.

OnLive was very different, it was mostly the research into a speedy encoding proceedure so large 720p video streams of games on servers could be sent to your home, it's was mostly that. This Steam OS would be basically a game centric distro of Linux I presume, which runs all current Steam games (PC, MAC) and just streams content over your network just like any other media sharing/streaming box you already own like a Roku but the content isn't coming from anywhere other than your own house.

It's an OS you will use on a Game Streaming box... it's a very simple concept. Take what you already have on your PC now (Windows, Mac, Linux) and replace it with the Steam OS... that's basically it, ideally it's set up specifically to work well when streaming games to various displays in your home. May not seem like much if you already got things set up... but if it plays all the current and future Steam game properly (which I imagine is priority number 1 for Valve too) then it's great cause it's a Free OS for gaming, no need to buy a copy of windows just for a box you use to game on your TV, or even your regular monitor/desktop pc even if it's cool enough.

my only worry about this is does this make the pc a competitor to consoles in the big 2s eyes?

will ms and sony still leave us pc people out of their bidding wars or will console exclusive now include this new threat from valve?

What's not to get? A computer hooked up to your TV which is usually in your living room. Imagine a PC OS that just boots straight into Big Picture, except it has two more options in the main menu. One for 'stream from desktop' and one for 'video services'.

It's the 2DS of operating systems

Valve are a cool company experimenting with all kinds of exciting things so I look forward to this no matter how it turns out :D

Man, I just built a PC in the living room for a) gaming and b) streaming football. When the season's over, and this releases, may be worth checking out. If the streaming thing works, I could even take old parts I have lying around and make a couple of streaming game boxes.

"Half Life 3, exclusively on SteamOS"

If they can make a lean OS and rally the developer support behind it to slowly wean the industry off of direct X, this could potentially be awesome.

1. steam OS

2. steam box

3. stream box?

As someone with only a mac who wishes he could play more computer games, the idea of a free operating system I can bootcamp into where there likely will be far more games available than on OS X excites me.

@sometimesavowel: That's highly unlikely... I'm reasonably sure the next two announcements will be either some kind of controller or the fabled "steam box". With the original announcement about the announcements being announced this week (your brain hurt yet?) saying they are all going to be related to steam in the living room I cant imagine them announcing a game right now. But hey I could be wrong but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

#announcementmadness!

Huh? That's neat, I guess.

Ive always kind of wondered why there has never been a gaming OS on PC. If nothing else a shell boot option that only loads the bare minimum Windows features that are needed to run the game.

The actual OS level game development stuff seems like it is still years away before we see anything meaningful.

The streaming part of the OS using a "steambox" sounds like the more interesting bit in the near term. Moving my big gaming PC downstairs so I can play my games on the big screen is cumbersome and not worth the effort. Having a cheap box hooked up to the big TV that streams video and controller input of all my steam library games from the big gaming PC upstairs, in theory sounds awesome. Like "screw getting a PS4 or Xbox One" awesome.

I really hope that this is as great as I'm thinking.

Because you don't want to move your computer to your tv, to play on the couch. Hence the low powered streaming only steam box.

To be honest though, I doubt this is going to be ideal. I think the results will vary as wildly as your wifi reception will. At least if its anything like Chromecast, which never works right for me streaming video over a webpage. The only redeeming thing about it is that since its an open OS you can hook it up over a cable on a regular crappy PC like an old pc or a netbook. I think this will be good enough for most indie games.

Or because you're well off, and you don't want to buy two copies of a game for desk and couch and you want cloud saves, steam friends list, badges, etc etc. synced in between a game played at your desk PC and at your living room PC. Hence the real steam box, which would be clearly the best option.

Way too many unknowns as of now to really tell how this will pan out. We need to know what kind of hardware will be supporting this, how easiy the upgrade path is etc.

If there isn't a specific hardware directly from valve, I will have huge reservation of its success.

It seems inevitable that one of the other two announcements will be Half-Life 3...nothing else makes sense.

@phished0ne@scampbell

But they would need to be running on Linux to work right? I'm not sure I understand and I feel dumb now -_-.

#BIGPLAYS

Technically, any modern computer you have seen could be a Linux machine, given that it is an OS and not a piece of hardware. At this point you can install it on basically anything.

As for SteamOS, I'm all for it. Though I am all for anything that allows me to not use Windows.

I'll for sure give it a try on my media center pc when it comes out.

Doesn't do anything for me based on what I read in the OP, but I can see why people are interested. Will be interesting to see where this takes the industry. Crazy times we are living in.

@jaks: That's true as of right now but Ideally they get around that with how the streaming capabilities might work. For example; you have your windows pc with all your games on it and your theoretical "steam box" hooked up to your TV with the steam OS on it. Being able to stream all your games (reliably, hopefully) from your PC to the steam box eliminates any need for coding for compatibility. Or they work some magic and just have all there games already able to work on steam OS. That sounds highly unlikely and borderline impossible but I don't know how that shit works so anything could happen, right? Either way I'm sure Valve has thought about that and has something figured out. Maybe it'll make more since once they announce everything over the next couple of days.

If it is an open OS I doubt it is going to different that it already is on PC.

Holy shit guys: not every single video game announcement or new thing is meant for you. My PC and TV are right next to each other on my desk so it's not really for me either, but christ; closing your eyes and refusing to see the potential is asinine.

Pointless. Valve wants to phase out MS so badly, but it's just not going to happen. Don't know why anyone would get a Steambox.

I love Valve, and I pretty much don't play games unless they're on Steam anymore, but like...

If the stability of Big Picture is any indication, I think I'm gonna wait until they're a few iterations deep on this.

And people seem to be forgetting that all of this will be running on PC's, you know, the machines that let you do quite a lot of shit like running multiple OS's...

damn, son

No one will code games for it because everyone already has Windows.

48 hours until they announce the steam box eh?

I still don't get the point of this and a potential "steam box." Essentially, Valve wants to make a PC console, which I guess is ok, but one of the things I like about my PC is that when I'm not using it for games, its still a computer. I need a computer for school and my daily life, the fact that my computer ALSO plays games is just an added bonus. I guess I'm just not really seeing who this is for. If I already have a computer, why would I buy a Steam box?

Im sure SteamOS will still allow you to install 3rd party software, after all the bitching about Win8 that Gabe did, it would be humorous if they went and did the same thing with their OS.

Cool, now I just need my back catalog available on the SteamOS, which will take some significant amount of time.

Cool, but I wonder how effective it will be in the long run. I know Steam is a mighty contender on the PC, but there are still games that I play that don't release on it. Unless the come out with a viable purchasing option that lets me have my other PC still acting like a PC, than I don't see myself doing this. However, it's still a cool idea/thing.

This is potentially very huge, and them releasing it entirely for free will basically help safeguard their own future against competing, closed systems. Gabe and crew must have started production on this immediately after the reveal of Windows 8.

It's just that gaming has never been their core business. In the end, you'll still have millions, if not billions of office PCs worldwide running Windows. I don't know if they'll get desperate any time soon. They just totally suck at expanding into other markets.