Valve has today announced SteamOS, a Linux based operating system which will be released soon as a free download and is designed to bridge the gap between Steam on PC and the living room.
Commenting on the intention of SteamOS Valve wrote:
"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."
SteamOS will allow for Family Sharing, In-home streaming, music, movies, TV, and more. A host of family options will also be available to allow multiple users to have their own distinct Steam games library on SteamOS devices.
Valve has said the the product will be freely licensable for PC and other device manufacturers; they've also said we should "Stay tuned in the coming days for more information."
Many had expected Valve to announce SteamBox and the revelation that they've been working their own operating system is something of a surprise. Of course, this doesn't rule out the possibility that the company isn't also working on a SteamBox console which may be announced at some future date.
You can find out more intormation about SteamOS here.
Yes, Half-Life 3 is still a myth.
