A combination of Steam’s current platform and Linux will give birth to SteamOS, a new platform that Valve has announced today.
SteamOS is an operating system that has been designed for living room usage and it combines the architecture of Linux with a gaming experience built for the bigger screen. SteamOS extends Steam’s game-distribution platform to the TV, with a feature set intended to support in-home streaming and some not-yet-announced media service partnerships that will add video and music streaming to the OS, as well. It is a “cooperating system” Valve states.
there are hundreds of games that will come to the SteamOS next year
Valve says that there are hundreds of games that will come to the SteamOS next year and they have achieved significant performance increases in graphic processing. They also state that game developers are already taking advantage of these benefits as they target the new platform for their releases.
The standard Steam platform we’ve already used to, will be also gaining some new features as family sharing, parental restrictions, and options for movies, music, and other media will come available to it.
SteamOS will be available soon as a free download for users and as a freely licensable operating system for manufacturers.
All in all SteamOS is a refreshing new take on gaming, certainly striking difference for themselves from the console platforms like PlayStation and Xbox. We look forward for further announcements to see the full extent of future Valve’s offering.