Valve Has its Own Operating System Now in SteamOS

Maybe one of the other two announcements is Half Life 3. How crazy would that be?

if that is the case, then ultimately won't be a game changer. One of the prime advantages of a console is the price. If Valve can come out with a Steam box at a sub-$500 price point (that makes the games looks comparable to next-gen consoles) then there will be a new contender in the market. If it's a $1000 box that hooks up to my TV and doesn't to the things I use a PC for, then no dice.

Glad I held off grabbing a Nvidia Shield, sounds like slapping this on some old laptop should do the trick for the home theatre quite nicely indeed. The current gaming laptop hooked up to it just boots into big picture/XBMC anyway, no need for a full windows install. The biggest thing I want going forward is to only have to bother keeping one machine up to date and powerful, it's a waste throwing money at multiple PC's and consoles.

I think it's going to be really interesting to see how quickly third party gaming software like mouse and keyboard manufacturer utilities come over. If they can nail the feel of a gaming rig day 1, we've got some interesting times ahead.

Steam OS is what Valve was working on when they should have been making Half Life 3.

this has peaked my interest. Looking forward to the next 2 announcements this week.

Suppose this will work with vmware? I don't feel like dual booting and I don't need another computer laying around...

I'm totally ready to ditch windows as much as possible, and a couch friendly OS is just what I might need to ditch next gen! I'm excited for the rest of the week!

I'm wondering if they'll allow users access to root.

@kablui: Google Wine.

Whoa. I am very glad they're gunning for a custom OS over trying to sell hardware in the form of SteamBoxes. Cool if they try that eventually, but this is something that could grab marketshare. I think they'll pull off a good OS but the question is whether enough games will support it. Modern game creation suites that allow easier ports could help a lot in this regard. Nice logo, too!

I find it funny that people think anyone outside of a niche audience is going to give a shit about this.

Oh. The way I worded it sounded better...

Thanks, but no thanks. I'll stick to my desktop with Windows where I can still play my GOG games as well as my Steam and Origin stuff.

This has probably been mentioned but has anyone noticed "c17" in the blue planet image thingie majig?

Really, really interesting if this OS will be able to play more than just the limited Linux supported Steam games. Fortunately since it will be able to stream games from "other computers" I don't think that matters too much.

Would be nice to have a cheap, fully usable living room computer (or a Steam Box) and my normal dedicated rig streaming whatever games I want to play to the former.

Half Life 3 confirmed for SteamOS timed exclusivity.

@exfate: Don't forget though that you'll need something to control these third party hardware platforms so I imagine one of the announcements to be some kind of steam/PC controller/game pad or whatever. Though I'm sure the details of how all of this will work would come with these announcements. Either way exciting times are ahead.

12% on Rotten Tomatoes

"deus ex music"

It's 2047, the only two companies left on the surface of planet earth, Valve and Google are in vigorous battle for world domination. Using augmented agents, in proxy wars around the world the evil mega corporations fight for the domination of the ultimate resource, Humanity.

"bwaaaaam"

by directors M. Night. Shyamalan? and McG!

written by gary whitta

coming 2014

To make it a successful OS some things need to happen:

* It has to 'just work' on 99% of the hardware. Most gamers just don't have time to browse the internet for hours to find a driver.

* It has to have a way to make the vast majority of Windows games (past, present, future) run without any significant performance loss.

If only the first one is there, it will still make an interesting OS for a media center or a more office/home-centered machine.

But since even the big Linux companies have never succeeded in either of those, I doubt Valve will make it happen.

I don't understand why someone who already has a gaming PC or isn't just completely up Valve's ass and hopelessly addicted to anything they release, would make use of this. This is a neat announcement that, on it's own, seems completely silly and pointless for 95% of people in an already comparatively small section of gaming overall. A previous comment mentioned that this is great because you can boot multiple OSes from a traditional PC, but... someone really needs to explain why that makes any sense.

So Valve wants to be the living room Microsoft? With how shitty big picture mode can be they are off to a great start.

Awesome and perfect timing for me considering I just rigged my PC up to be accessible in the loungeroom.

Cool stuff. Competition is always good. Pouring some development money in getting better 3D graphics performance on Linux is also good.

I mean it has to be the steam box at some point, and I bet an exclusive game. I would not be surprised if it was either Half Life 3 or Left 4 Dead 3.

No. Win-based games will not run on SteamOS natively; they will stream from your Windows PC within your network. I've heard people speculating that this is a push to get more games to be Linux compatible. SteamOS isn't an incentive for devs/publishers to do that. Having a large userbase that own a console running SteamOS made by Valve and/or its hardware partner(s) could be though.

This is potentially revolutionary.

There aren't enough games on the PS4 or XOne but that doesn't stop people, or even maybe yourself, from buying it though. People will buy those consoles and games will get made for them. People will switch to SteamOS now that it is being marketed and push and games will get made for it.

@soulcake: That's only for the Windows/Mac only games. Linux games will run nateively

Wait... linux based... doesn't that mean all games now have to support linux to work with Steam OS??

I expect the other two announcements to be A. Solid details on one or more third party hardware platforms running SteamOS, and B. More detailed plans for Steam to become a more open, easier to publish on marketplace, as Gabe has hinted at previously - a caveat to which might be required SteamOS support for all games except those from existing partners (i.e big publishers.)

I'd be very interested in a set top box that allowed me to remotely play my PC games off my high-end PC on my big screen TV. If the Steam Box can do that, I'm in. Otherwise, it would be just another console.

Hmm, Gabe said Windows 8 was the devil, so he went and built his own OS. Let's see how many AAA developers sign up.

I've never understood why people want to play in the living room, honestly. As a PC gamer this means nothing to me.

As cool as this is, I really love Windows 8 so I'll be sticking with that.

first of three...... kinda want to have multiple USB ports for a lot of those steam games. Big Picture is nice, but gotta keep a keyboard and mouse along with the controller

Coming this year the "Three" box. Containing tf3, hl3, portal 3 and l4d3. Only on SteamOS....

Whaaaaaaaaat!?

Interesting idea though considering how operating systems are spelled out Steamos just sounds like some b-movie monster that just sounds silly as many people are probably going to combine the word over calling it steam-os.

So this is probably a stupid question, but you won't actually get to play any games on steamOS unless a Linux version exists, right? I'm all for circumventing Windows 8, but there just aren't enough games that I can run outside of Windows for switching to make sense to me

Desktop Linux is the very definition of a cluster fuck. A cluster fuck that spans entire continents, language barriers, and religions. It has spawned some of the dumbest open source projects in history: Pulse Audio, Network Manager, Mir, and much more!

The best thing that could happen to Linux on the desktop is to have someone with a metric shit ton of money walk onto the playground and say, "This is the way we are going to do it. You can come along and play by our rules, or whatever, go masturbate in obscurity."

I'm curious to see how well Valve handles this.

Yeah. Less input lag for one.

I could totally see having steamos as a second os on my pc

@flannelbeard: hi5! My thoughts exactly.

Depends what you want to do with your PC. A proper monitor is still tons better as any TV screen.

Eh, nope. From the way they've worded it on the website you'll be able to run certain games specifically ported to Linux on your SteamOS box. Windows or MacOS games will have to be run on an actual Windows or Mac machine, then streamed towards the machine running SteamOS.

EDIT: To be a total dick about it, Valve just made its own Nvidia SHIELD.

And it was Good. Hopefully!

What is the difference between the PS4 and Xbox One? The pricing and package, everything else is basically the same and comes down to personal preference, I really don't grasp comments like this. Microsoft doesn't innovate, what different did Sony do? Nothing, nada, zilch.

Microsfot wanted to innovate with becoming Steam like, but the outcry of what basically is piracy on consoles - used games sales supporters and trading camps, was too much even a sane person could stand and they reverted that thing.

If you want a gaming PC, $499 covers about the graphics card and RAM, everything else costs a bit more. And no if you buy a full PC for $499 it's not a gaming PC, playing games at 15FPS is not gaming but a dias show.

So yeah when and if they offer a Steam Box for $499 and it actually has decent parts inside, you know parts that make new games run smooth as butter, I will congratulate VALVe, but that wont happen, cause they can't swallow the loses.

And as said above a OS soley for playing games is fine on a console or handheld, for everything else it's useless and as much as people like to give shit to Microsoft for Windows it's simply the best OS on the market, why would anyone go Steam OS for gaming if he can do that with Windows and many more things is beyond me, besides if Steam OS would actually run all games I would say "hm.. maybe a serious gamer would go for it" but because it's just yet another Ubuntu derivative, we know how that will end.