Valve announces SteamOS in a play for the living room
Today Steam company Valve unveiled the first of three big secrets on their site. For those not in the know, Valve currently has a page on their website dedicated to three mysterious glyphs accompanied by a timer. Many believe this countdown leads up to the announcement of the “Steambox”. Valve co founder Gabe Newell fuelled these assumptions during last week’s LinuxCon by stating that “next week they were going to roll out more information on their views regarding hardware opportunities for Linux in the living room “.
What does SteamOS offer;
- In-home streaming
If you already are a user of the famous Steam client then it is as simple as running the client on your PC and then your SteamOS enabled machine can stream the games directly on your TV.
- Music, TV and Movies
Valve announced that they are currently looking in and negotiating with “many of the media services you know and love” Rolling out access to these services for use with Steam and SteamOS will begin soon.
- Family Sharing
A recently announced new Steam feature is the option to share your games library with a selected few. “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”. Their website also states that they have several other family related features in the works which are to be disclosed at a later date.
Valve stated the company aims to offer their own hardware and software solution to compete with the next gen consoles. And SteamOS is clearly about the software aspect of their offering. Even though more information will be revealed in the coming days, for now we share a first comparison between SteamOS with PS Vita TV.
Like or hate reading my articles address me on twitter @italkgame or voice your thoughts in the comments below. Are you exited about Valve’s news or did you had a Reggie like meh moment?
What with the “?” in Big library of games.
My bad I missed the X it should be a ? mainly because there hasn’t been an announcement yet on which or how many titles will be playable with SteamOS.
But in all fairness I believe one could assume that SteamOS will indeed support a big library of games. And probably a bigger one then the PS Vita TV can offer. But for the time being that is mere speculation.
GOOD ARTICLE. PS VITAS DON’T NEED TO BE BOUGHT, ONLY FANBOYS THINK IT’S STILL ‘GOOD’
STEAM, WE’RE ALL UP FOR YOU!
Agreed, ps vita is not needed in the world of diverse gaming. It just makes people confused.
PSP, PSP GO, PSP Slim, PS Vita, PS Vita TV, meehhhhh…Sony should get over it, and stop milking people with low-demanded products.
Are you freaking kidding me? VITA TV is a great idea!
You guys are just Valve fanboys. I mean, one of your usernames is “Valve”. C’mon, son!
ps vita tv?
Why don’t buy a ps3 on ebay?
Indeed, the PS Vita is not as good a I did expect…
But still, it’s an revolution of portable gaming!
Indeed, SONY HAS F***** UP THE PSVITA!!!
steam has more games then the vita *** lol?
steam doesnt have more games then the vita tv…vita can play all ps4 games all psp games in psn all ps1 games in psn also ps2 classics, and it was announced that they will more then likely let it play ps3 psn games since it is capable of it
If we are talking non-modded ps3 streaming here, then there is way less games, since classics series are not covering even half of games from original consoles. Also I’m pretty sure that there is still more games on steam – year ago (even before launching Greenlight) there were over 2000 games. According to wikipedia there is 793 games for PS3 (and 635 of them are multiplat), and I’m pretty sure Classics series are still under 1000, PS2 and PS1 combined.
What a bunch of morons, there are over 2500 games on Steam. The number of games available to run on the Vita TV is MUCH lower than that, probably half that.
here’s the problem… we have no idea how many steam games are gonna be playable on steamOS could be only 10% or it could be 100% we just don’t know so as it stands the vita tv plays way more! time will tell how many it really plays… i’d also like to point out that the ps1/ps3/psp/psvita games it plays IT ACTUALLY PLAYS not remote play when connected to another device whereas the steam os needs to be connected to a steam client as stated above!
Well since its Linux based its safe to assume it can at least natively play Linux games now add the ability to stream games from a Windows PC and it can play all Steam Games
It’s probably safe to slap a no down on both, Vita especially, for multiple displays. The Vita doesn’t have the power and multiple displays doesn’t fit the living room aesthetic.
I’ve got my rig running fedora, linux, and steam on it. Only linux games are available on linux steam…which is like indie games and some valve games; read half life. I don’t remember if L4D is on it though. So if Steam now offers more games on linux via some Wine feature to play Win games then awesome, I’ll jump aboard. If the use of it is like I think I read it, pc has steam server and you stream it to steam os client hooked up to tv, then it will work even without more linux games, but it would suck. I’m mostly hoping for HL2 episode 3.
gaben is coming for the home market…i was waiting for the steam box , how sad.
That chart is so biased
No it’s not. You’re just obviously a Valve fanboy or employee. If you have facts to fill in those blanks, then feel free to share them and he’ll update it
Lol mister Valve, why do you feel the chart is biased? It only shows facts. The article states it is merely a first comparison. And as it stands not many specifics are known about SteamOS
Your chart is pretty bad. It show the fanboy in you… Valve has over 2k games in library; Also you are comparing an OS to a hardware product.
I like some of Sony’s products and I also like some of Steam services. SteamOS will more than likely be the service behind the Steambox, in effect making it a direct competitor to next gen devices and mini consoles like the Ouya and PS Vita TV ect. I do agree there is room for improvement but what facts do you currently miss in the chart?
It is simple one can compare apples with oranges when talking about fruits 😉
Allright, I understand valve…
BUT WHY THE heck, would SONY make an PS Vita to play at your tv?
Here in Holland you can get the ps3 on Ebay for only 100 euro’s ($135,04)… So here’s a list why not to buy this thing (at least in europe).
-PS3 has better graphics
-PS Vita-TV is NOT able to play back-up games! PS3 is!
-The PS3 is for sale (in europe) for only 100 euros!
Steam has an great idea, and; nope, i’m not an fanboy…
because I still believe the Vita can become better than this!
So a reason to not buy the Vita TV is cause you can’t pirate PS3 games?
Look I agree that if you want to play PS3 games than just buy a PS3 but for folk like myself that don’t have a PS3 nor are interested in buying one the Vita TV is a good choice to play some of those games we did not get to play while also adding every PS system so far
Well, I wasn’t talking about pirating, I was talking about back-ups… These are legal in Holland at least…
I don’t have an ps3 too, but I rather buy an ps3, because I’ve an PS Vita… It’s an great handheld… but I think these games shouldn’t be played at the screen of an television…