A long countdown to a three-tiered announcement, Valve has finally rolled out phase one of its plan to take over your living room with SteamOS.
What many thought was going to be a Steam Box console is for now a Steam platform, one that will be available for hardware manufacturers to implement at will. Perhaps not surprisingly, the immediate focus is on gaming. Why the need for SteamOS? Valve honcho Gabe Newell has long been saber-rattling in Windows 8’s general direction, advocating instead for a Linux-based solution. Valve is wary of a Windows 8 that might threaten to supplant Steam as The Place To Go For Games. SteamOS will also focus on (naturally) graphics processing efficiencies, with access to the full 3000+ strong Steam catalog, and several top titles available—at some point—natively. Otherwise, all we know is that it’ll be available “soon,” and that the hardware’s not far behind.
Here are 4 Kickass features of Steam OS which might help make it a permanent place in your living room:
1 In-home Streaming
You can play all your Windows and Mac games on your SteamOS machine, too. Just turn on your existing computer and run Steam as you always have – then your SteamOS machine can stream those games over your home network straight to your TV!
2 Music, TV, Movies
The folks at Valve are working with many of the media services you know and love. Soon they will begin bringing them online, allowing you to access your favorite music and video with Steam and SteamOS.
Steam OS is coming to make a place in your living room
3 Family Sharing
In the past, sharing Steam games with your family members was hard. Now you can share the games you love with the people you love. Family Sharing allows you to take turns playing one another’s games while earning your own Steam achievements and saving your individual game progress to the Steam cloud.
4 Family Options
The living-room is family territory. That’s great, but you don’t want to see your parents’ games in your library. Soon, families will have more control over what titles get seen by whom, and more features to allow everyone in the house to get the most out of their Steam libraries.
Find more about Steam OS here
