Valve Announce Steam Operating System

Valve have just announced their plans to extend their Steam service, and with it PC gaming, into your living room. Previously, they had Big Picture mode which allowed for a gamepad-controlled layout akin to the PS3’s XMB or Xbox Dashboard, but now they’re developing a Steam OS.

It’s based on Linux, designed for TVs in the living room and will be available soon, free of charge.

As we’ve been working on bringing Steam to the living room, we’ve come to the conclusion that the
environment best suited to delivering value to customers is an operating system built around Steam itself.
SteamOS combines the rock-solid architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the big screen.
It will be available soon as a free stand-alone operating system for living room machines.

It will be completely standalone software, which means developers will have to make Steam OS native versions of their games – presumably Linux versions. Don’t worry, though, as you’ll be able to stream Windows and Mac games over your network from another PC.

They’re also moving into music, TV and movies rather than just games, planning to bring this content to Steam. This all ties in with the recently announced family sharing options, and there’ll be more ways to filter games for individual family members.

So, not quite the SteamBox we were expecting (though that might be announced later in the week – there are still two announcements to come on Wednesday and Friday) and still a bit more complicated than buying a dedicated console – but the streaming sounds ace, meaning you won’t need an expensive and big device under your TV. I wonder if it’d work with a Raspberry Pi? If so, I’m in.

Source: Steam

29 Comments

  1. It’ll probably offer better performance than Windows, but it depends on the drivers and games-developers support to be successful as a standalone thing.

    • I for one will be waving and shouting, “F**K OFF!” to microsoft when this releases. Could be amazing for PC gamers everywhere, and make PC gaming more accessible/cheaper.

  2. Personally, if I had my PC hooked up to my big living room tv, then I’d want to run Windows, and just run Steam from there.
    There aren’t very many Linux games right now, and while the major devs probably will release versions, I can’t see many Indie games being supported. And I’m sure all the movies, tv etc will still be accessible through the Windows version, so I just don’t get the point in this at all.

    • I currently only play games on my gaming laptop hooked up to me TV so this sounds perfect.

      • But I don’t see there being any advantage to putting their OS on your laptop, when Windows + Steam would work just as well, if not better.

      • If you knew how OS’s work in particular kernels and drivers interact you would see.

        A linux build that targets only gaming hardware is a lot slimmer than a generic OS such as Windows.

      • But it still relies on the availability of Linux-based games, of which currently there aren’t that many in comparison to Windows based games on the Steam store.

        Maybe I should have been clearer – to me it looks like gaming on Windows is superior to gaming on Valve’s OS because of the number of games available and the ability of using Windows as you normally would. That’s not to say that the games themselves won’t be better on a streamlined, dedicated OS, but far more games need to have Linux support before I would even consider Valve’s OS.

      • You also have to consider that you basically lose compatibility with a lot of software that you could also use your PC for.

      • @gazzab: Sorry I see your point now. On that note I assume Valve will be encouraging developers port their future games to their platform. I am not sure there is enough of a market for that. I assume Valve thinks there is.

        @KeRaSh: I assume most PC gamers would only use their rig for nothing but games. I personally have another machine to do things like Visual Studio and what not. If that can’t be done dual boot setup would be more preferable.

      • Yeah, I think Valve are going to have find a way to entice Devs to make Linux ports if they want their OS to be used.
        I’m still interested to see if they’ll be some hardware announcement like the Steambox. Perhaps this is what Valve think Devs will want to develop for?

  3. Doesn’t that all sound like a terrible idea? I don’t really get the point of it at all. If you want your pc games on the big screen why not just plug your telly into the pc? I’m confused!

    • Because Valve seem to think you cant do that. Also they seem to think consoles have never existed “Finally, you don’t have to give up your favorite games, your online friends…just to play on the big screen.”

    • Well…

      1) You’d only need a small PC, say ITX size under your TV, and then stream everything from a windows PC.

      2) Steam OS would offer a more functional [with controller] interface and hopefully a more stable one than the currently buggy big picture mode.

      3) It’s all about bridging the gap between a console (dedicated platform) initiative and the more powerful (and open) PC approach.

      4) From their point of view, what do they have to lose when it can only help to expand and promote Steam and their games. Sure it’s free, but then so is other software including Steam on the PC. So as long as they update it, it should be fine.

      • I can see the attraction of wanting a working “Big Picture” type mode, though it really doesn’t bother me because I’m quite happy with the wireless keyboard/trackpad I use for Windows navigation. But if it means better controller/gamepad support for games then that can only be a good thing. Even a hardened PC Gamer must realise that trying to use a mouse/keyboard combo on a big TV while (probably) sitting on the sofa doesn’t really work ;)

      • I haven’t personally got anything against windows though I do prefer 7 over 8. But I do like some of what 8 has done, and understand it’s closer to a home experience, but I guess I’d like something more closed and simplified when it comes to the home TV + PC gaming. I’m not sure whether windows 8 can be navigated with a 360 controller though.

      • If you have a PC under your TV, you don’t need a Steambox – just plug it in to the TV!

      • Yeah but not many people want a large PC under their television. Even if they did, they’d still have the buggy ‘Big Picture’ mode.

        I honestly don’t think Steam OS is the dog’s b******ks of everything PC though, it doesn’t sound like a contender for Windows at the moment, but it is a handy piece of tech to consider; handy being the operative word. At best people can have two hard disks and two separate OS’s, one windows, one steam.

  4. Not a chance in hell am I installing this.

    The Steam client is buggy enough, thank you very much.

  5. Ubuntu with a gaming skin then… Perhaps it will even use Unity that just finds games….

    Non-news.

    • This is being reported across the entire gaming world, pretty much. How is this “non-news”? It’s fascinating to see what Valve are up to with big announcements, whether it’s a good move or not; whether it succeeds or fails.

  6. Steam OS on Raspberry Pi streaming your games from the PC in the other room? Sounds a lot like Vita TV to me, brilliant news!! Looks like local game streaming could be the new leap forward, it’s a great concept and I can’t wait to give it a go.

  7. Any OS that isn’t windows sounds like good news to me!

  8. I built my PC mainly to play games, now, despite the Microsoft haters Windows 8 actually does a very good job of being a gaming OS. That said, if Valve can persuade the devs to create equivalent quality releases on Linux/SteamOS (and not in a Linux wrapper) then that could indeed be a good thing.
    Major problem I can see is how they deal with fragmentation, hope they have a mature driver library…
    Also, hope it can be dual booted (or booted off USB) otherwise I probably won’t bother.

  9. I for one am open to the idea certainly. I can see myself enjoying PC games streamed from a large bulky PC to the small box and the beauty of our HD TV at home. Not to mention an OS that’s leaner and should leave lots of room for games.

    Can’t imagine how they’re going to handle security and driver compatibility though. Linux isn’t exactly fighting the way with all of that and what it has done, has been over a long proportion of time.

  10. It does make me wonder if Gabe really knows what he’s taking on…… Trash talking Microsoft every few months is one thing, but I believe Richard Stallman will have a bit to say about a SteamOS particularly if it bakes DRM down through basic access to your own PC…. And Stallman isn’t known to hold his tongue or mince his words.

    • Exactly. Maintaining a piece of software is completely different from maintaining an entire OS. They will constantly have to make sure there are no security risks once this takes off.
      I currently have both my media and gaming PC hooked up to the living room TV and I like the flexibility I have with both PCs running Windows in case I want to install non gaming software. Steam OS might optimize performance when it comes to gaming but would you give up features like watching movies, listening to internet radio and what not for that? Windows doesn’t use up much CPU in the background and with this targeting gaming PCs I don’t see the RAM becoming a huge problem.
      If Steam OS is only built for gaming, then I’m sure other people would also think twice before sacrifice basic PC tasks on a costly piece of hardware that usually is able to do many, many different things.

      • Forgot to add: If game support was there, I’d consider running Windows and Steam OS in a dual boot setup.

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