make it monitor friendly, put photoshop on it and ill throw windows in the bin

Lol @ linux gaming.

A living room, what's not to get? A standard home entertainment setup with a big screen in a big room with a couch in front of it should be the stereotypical image that comes to your mind.

I will definetly take a look at this. Sounds great for my HTPC!

@jayjonesjunior: who is it meant for? I don't have a spare PC to run this on and I'm not converting my entire computer to a huge gaming platform.

Doing an OS instead of a piece of hardware means you can still make the PC you want. This seems like the ideal solution for people who want a PC in their living room primarily for playing games. The Linux game scene isn't huge, but if games get programmed in OpenGL more often (The graphic API that linux mac and windows can all use) it shouldn't be terrible to port them over the rest of the way. It seems like most developers who do a Mac version these days put out a Linux version too sooner or later.

Not gonna lie, this seems...retarded. I guess we'll need to wait for the other two announcements, but if this is literally just a second OS that I boot into just to launch Steam then I really don't care. I guess they could be trying to mimick the performance levels of a console (in the sense of reduced hardware-usage overhead compared to Windows), but it will have to be one hell of a boost to replace HDMI+Big Picture mode.

Just wanna know if it runs on raspberry pi, Would make it easier and less cluttered then my HTPC I have.

This isn't that big of news, its a Linux OS that basically runs Big Picture Exclusively, it wont replace a Gaming PC because 80% of games out there (especially from major studios) are exclusive to Windows. Even the streaming service requires you to have another PC running Windows and Steam.

Between this and the 2DS, it makes me wonder why people think everything has to be made specifically for them.

Curious! I still play my PC games at a desk with a mouse and keyboard, though, so it sounds like this isn't for me.

So is it like a more powerful Ouya?

I've only seen a linux machine once, and it was a computer at an observatory.

I'm not proud that the first word association that came to my mind was John Stamos...

No. Not at all.

Yeah, this thing has streaming tech built right in.

So it's like a more powerful Shield. Duh.

He makes a good point and you're being kind of a dick. To replace your OS just to take advantage of this would make sense if it offered something more than streaming to another PC. Otherwise it seems redundant to say the least. With his PC hooked up to a TV, as is mine, SteamOS is being directly targeted at people like he and I. Who else would it be meant for?

And if not I'm a God-hating Communist? This is what the Cold War was all about, after all.

What I meant was it doesn't clarify what this is supposed to accomplish. Although to be fair, neither does their website, so maybe it's not Alex's fault.

So, can I throw this on my phone and then stream games to my TV from my PC? Cause that would be sweeeet. (dorm situation makes PC+long ass HDMI a hassle).

agreed.

I don't think this is for me cause i like to play pc games at a desk with a mouse and keyboard (albiet most of the pc games i play can't be played with a controller) so i recognize this is not for me. I think its cool for people who wanted this but doesn't interest me at all

And don't get me started on the reaction people had to the 2DS

@scarabus: Unless of course it somehow streams the games from Valve's servers, similar to how Onlive works.

I can't imagine anything less appealing.

I heard that the 3rd announcement is gonna be half life 3 exclusive to steamOS

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

48 hours until they announce the steam box eh?

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

damn, son

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...

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.

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.

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.

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

@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.

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.

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

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.

#BIGPLAYS

@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 -_-.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Huh? That's neat, I guess.