Valve has been trying to get a piece of that sweet console living room pie for some time and their newest solution is here to address the somewhat low adoption rate of Steam’s big picture mode. The SteamOS is a full operating system built off a Linux kernel and designed to be accessed with a controller and television in mind.
Now your initial thought is probably: Linux? So it doesn’t play games then. Well that’s not the case, the OS will utilize media streaming to play your games off of any other PC that you might have in your house regardless of operating system.
Valve is being vague but they’ve also mentioned that they’re partnering with “many of the media services you know and love” so you can likely expect Netflix and Hulu support on the OS as well.
I may be in a niche group but this is actually a great solution for me personally. I have a cheap little media center PC hooked up to my TV but I like having my gaming rig kept elsewhere in the house. Streaming games from my gaming PC into my living room without having to move the computer would definitely take away some of the reasons I find console gaming so attractive.
I can definitely see how this wouldn’t hold a lot of appeal for people outside my situation though. In order to effectively use the platform you’ll have to already own a gaming rig and purchase a device capable of running SteamOS to hook up to your tv. That or you’ll just have to be comfortable playing only Linux based games. Either way it’s likely not as cost effective as a PS4 or Xbox One.
The SteamOS much like their recently announced “Family Sharing” will be launching “soon”. You can learn more about the service by clicking here.
